Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em



Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em was something of a sitcom oddity. Ask anybody who watched it how long it ran, and how many episodes there were, and estimates will range wildly. In fact it ran for three brief seasons from 1973 to 1978 (the first two both being confined to the debut year of 1973) and a trio of Christmas specials - all in all, just 22 episodes.

Some Mothers was dreamed up by struggling TV writer Raymond Allen, who had been submitting TV scripts since the early Sixties, with only a few comedy sketches ever being accepted. His new idea concerned the central character of Frank Spencer. Spencer, in a manner similar to Laurel and Hardy (who were boyhood heroes of Crawford), was a walking disaster area - fully competent at being incompetent. Whether it was mending a boiler, auditioning for a job at a holiday camp or transporting a child's playhouse back home, if he could get it wrong; he would get it wrong.

After being rejected by ITV, Allen's proposal then landed on the desk of Michael Mills, Head of Comedy at the BBC, who saw the potential and commissioned a series of 7 episodes. The lead part of the series (then being called variously Don't Bring Frank, His Mother Was Just The Same and I Do Try) was offered first to Norman Wisdom (who probably could have had a fair stab at it) and then, more strangely, to Ronnie Barker - but both turned down the role. The third choice was Michael Crawford, who had his own ideas on how to interpret the part: "The characterisation I worked out in a play called No Sex Please We're British. I thought it was getting a very good reaction and people were laughing at him. There was also a lot of pathos attached to the character so I'd thought I'd like to develop it. He's a strange mixture because he's funny in what he says and also how he behaves but inside he's boiling - he's an incredibly sensitive soul. To play the part properly you've got to know what it feels like when people say things that hurt." Though Raymond Allen was credited with sole responsibility for the scripts, Crawford had a great deal of impromptu input causing Allen to remark dryly on one occasion, "It was nice of you to use some of my words."

Between them, Crawford, Mills (who had taken on the role as the programme's producer/director) and Allen added other ingredients to the prototype character. Spencer was given a supreme ability to annoy people - within the space of a ten minute conversation, otherwise calm and rational folk could be reduced to tears by Spencer's habit of not answering questions coherently or filling his responses with pointless trivial monologues, usually concerning his childhood. Frank was easily shocked and immensely na?ve - any slightly risqu? comment or action getting in response a startled "oooh" and a strained expression. He could find a homosexual advance in the most innocent of deeds. The image was completed by his clothing - his permanent attire was a raincoat and beret worn atop tight trousers and a gaudy tank-top, which he even wore in bed.

Surprisingly, the somewhat effeminate Frank Spencer was married. His mild-mannered wife, Betty (played by Michele Dotrice, actually fifth choice of actress after Sinead Cusack, Elisabeth Sladen, Linda Hayden and Nell Curran), seemed to exist on the edge of a nervous breakdown brought on by Frank's almost uninterrupted stints of being unemployed and their general lack of money. Nevertheless, she was loyal to him and always took his side when he was being criticised.

As with Laurel and Hardy, the series required an amount of action work to portray Frank's misadventures. When executed properly, these sequences (almost always done by Crawford himself without the use of a stand-in) could be amusing. However, more often than not, BBC economies played their part and the end results were less than they should have been. Having said this, exploits like Frank's wild roller-skate ride through the streets, or his ejection through a church roof by a stage lift, were and still are the highlights of the series to many. There was much public concern about the risky stunts causing Michael Mills to comment: "I'm torn between two things here. One is to say, 'Oh it's frightfully dangerous and he shouldn't do it and he's breaking his neck four times a day,' and that sort of thing. But the truth of the matter is that neither Michael nor I are really quite as stupid as we look and we wouldn't do things unless they were very, very carefully prepared and all the possible precautions were being taken. That's my job as the producer and that's his job as an actor - to make sure he doesn't do anything where he's going to kill himself."

Once again proving she lives on a different planet from the rest of us, self-appointed TV watchdog Mary Whitehouse attacked the series describing Crawford as "a purveyor of pornography" because of Frank's supposed obsession with his genitals ("Genitals...that's a very rude word for her to use," pointed out a mid-seventies TV interviewer. "It's a very long word for her to use," retorted Crawford sharply).

At the end of the second series, to everybody's bemusement, Frank and Betty managed to have a baby (in spite of Frank's frequent references to his unspecified groinal "trouble"). After a further two lone Christmas specials, Crawford decided to hang up his beret and move onto other projects. He explained: "I wanted to go off and do different things in those days. I didn't want to be owned by the public as a character. They'll demand that you go on and do more and more but I think you have to be very disciplined about your own career and I want to be acting when I'm 60 and 70."

Despite Crawford's fears of typecasting, he eventually donned the mac and beret again for a belated third (and last) season in 1978. Some slight changes to his character were made after worried viewers had voiced their fears about Frank as a father. "I decided," said Crawford, "that the original Frank Spencer could be made to grow up a little - to be slightly more sophisticated. Frank had to grow up, after five years, or he would seem a complete idiot. He is more in command, but still getting things wrong - simply because he is accident-prone. I knew this had to be done very well indeed. Otherwise people would say I should have left while I was ahead."

Frank had indeed now grown up - he was more self-assured and often assumed an air of preposterous self-importance (he would answer his name with "I am he"). This behaviour caused him to use words that he didn't understand, and so Spencer now became a Malaprop as well (claiming, for example, to have been "ejaculated" from his previous home and threatening to take his medical problems to "Harlot Street"). This last series saw Frank's long-lost grandfather appear from Australia offering Frank a new life on a sheep-station.

Crawford subsequently refused the BBC's requests for further Some Mothers despite allegedly being offered a joint contract by the BBC and an foreign broadcaster (reportedly American, but more likely Australian, where the show was a massive hit) for another 5 years of episodes. Just in case, the BBC decided to leave the series oddly open-ended - Frank last being seen taking flying lessons ready for his move to Australia. Crawford moved onto another sitcom, Chalk And Cheese, which was not well-received. Thereafter, he concentrated mainly on musical stage shows such as Barnum and Phantom Of The Opera. The spectre of Frank Spencer was kept alive long after the series ended as a fallback for TV impressionists (notably Mike Yarwood and Bobby Davro - the latter of which was spied on British TV in November 1998 still doing Frank Spencer impersonations...dear oh dear...).

Luckily the episodes of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em were not affected by the BBC's archive purges of the seventies and have been much-repeated since - often in disgracefully abbreviated form - both on the terrestrial BBC channels and on UK Gold on satellite. They were also amongst the most successful of the BBC's early home-video releases.

Season 1

Episode 1

Tx: 15/2/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 27/1/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Jane Hylton (Mrs Fisher), George Baker (Mr Lewis), Joe Dunlop (Mr Conway), John Ringham (Rigby), Linda Hayden (Linda), James Wardroper (Jackson), with: Sue Berkshire & Beryl Nesbitt & Candice Brandl & Donald Stratford (in office building).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), Dave Brinnicombe (Film Sound), John Teather (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Bryan Ellis (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank is newly married and is living with his mother-in-law who is frustrated by him constantly breaking things. His latest attempt to "help" involves losing the door to the coal shed. Betty buys him a new briefcase and Frank attends an interview for a sales rep of a wholesale ironmongers (or, as Spencer puts it, "wholeiron salemongers"). Before he even enters the building he causes chaos by giving a frightening bug-eyed grin to an assistant setting up a window display, causing the assistant to fall over and destroy the display. Frank then gets stuck in the lift for several hours. Once released, the interview with the manager of the company proceeds with Spencer breaking an expensive bathroom thermometer by demonstrating his door-knocking technique and causing a heavy metal cupboard to collapse with him under it. His patience worn thin, the manager gets short-tempered and shouts at his staff and they resign in protest. Frank leaves, confident of the outcome of the interview, only to get stuck in the lift again.

A competent but unremarkable first episode - the first half of which is given over mainly to scenes introducing the various characters, most notably Frank whose toolbox appropriately contains just one tool: a hammer. The second half of the episode, dealing with the interview, is the first of many set-pieces throughout the 22 segments of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em in which Spencer drives somebody to near mental breakdown in the space of a few minutes.

Mr Lewis' secretary is played by Linda Hayden, familiar to Seventies buffs from many sex comedies and horror films of the time. The fact that the Spencers are shortly moving into "a flat" is never mentioned again in the series - the next time we see them at home, they are living in a house.

This episode is referred to on the home-video releases as The Job Interview and is also known as The Salesman's Job.

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Episode 2

Tx: 22/2/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 6/2/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Barry Linehan (Mr Fletcher), Michael Golden (Jack Downer), Peter Green (George), Carolyn Hudson (Katherine).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), Dave Brinnicombe (Film Sound), John Teather (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Peter Smee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Ian Rawnsley (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank and Betty are staying with Betty's brother George, a futuristic designer who has filled his house with remote-control gadgetry. They are expecting an important visit from Mr Fletcher, the head of a large building firm, who is interested in a demonstration of the mechanical devices in the house, so Frank is on his best behaviour. Whilst trying to use the mechanical toilet, Frank accidentally breaks the flushing mechanism. His attempts to repair this soon lead to the toilet brush, a ballcock and his slippers becoming wedged in the pan. By now water from the leaking cistern is seeping through the house and finding its way down to the control room in the cellar. The others attempt to prevent Mr Fletcher noticing the various mounting problems, but Frank is already at work trying to repair things. His efforts cause a major short circuit of the house's systems - Mr Fletcher becomes trapped in an automatic chair and Betty's sister-in-law is jammed in an electric window. Mr Fletcher storms out of the house refusing to sign a contract for the technology.

One thing the BBC should have known by 1973 is that it is difficult to do fast-moving slapstick in a videotape studio in real time - such things require editing on film to do properly. This is the main problem with this episode - it looks forced and contrived and the cheap BBC special effects just make things worse. The "climactic" end sequence is especially bad in this respect, with the actors embarrassingly throwing themselves around the set in an attempt to make up for the limited range of movements of the malfunctioning devices. The episode earlier features a bad blooper with Michele Dotrice struggling with the sliding toilet door when the off-screen operator obviously cannot get it to close. There is also very bad continuity regarding the layout of the house as seen in the studio material versus the filmed exterior shots.

Another facet of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em's success, which this episode completely ignores, is the inclusion of slower-paced dialogue scenes. It is surely no coincidence that subsequent episodes would almost always do action work on film and additionally leave time for more verbal interplay between Spencer and the other characters. One good point about this episode is that Michele Dotrice looks very cute in her wet dress!

Trivia: Actress Carolyn Hudson (who plays George's wife in this episode and is now known as Carolyn Sears) is today in charge of a company called Supernails that markets nail care products. She is frequently seen on the shopping channel QVC and often talks of her acting career, citing her appearance in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em as one of the highlights.

This episode is also known as Visiting the Brother-in-Law.

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Episode 3

Tx: 1/3/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 15/2/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Jane Hylton (Mrs Fisher), Norman Chappell (Faraday), Geoffrey Whitehead (Osborne), Anthony Woodruff (Dr Smedley), Geoffrey Evans (First Policeman), Ken Haward (Second Policeman), Constance Carling (Police Operator).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), Dave Brinnicombe (Film Sound), John Teather (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Bryan Ellis (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank and Betty are in their new house one night when Betty's mother, Mrs Fisher, arrives having left her husband. She feigns illness and Frank is sent across the road to phone for a doctor. He calls upon a neighbour who writes television scripts and asks to use his phone but in the process he manages to break a typewriter and upset a vase of water over a new script.

After much confusion over house numbers, the doctor pronounces Mrs Fisher as being well. Frank realises he has unwittingly taken away the script that the writer was working on and crosses the road again to return it. Whilst he is gone, Betty locks up and goes to bed. Not wishing to wake her, Frank enlists the services of the writer and his friend to help him break back into his house. With Frank teetering atop a ladder, the police are called by an onlooker and all three are arrested as burglars.

After the let down of the previous episode, this is somewhat steadier though still far from a classic. The two intense, slightly camp, writers are a very strange idea and one can only imagine Raymond Allen intended them to be a tongue-in-cheek pastiche of a television writing team of the time (Galton/Simpson or Perry/Croft?).

Anthony Woodruff's much-harassed Dr Smedley character is introduced here and would turn up in many later episodes. Coincidentally, at the same time he was playing another family doctor on TV: Dr Foley to the Bellamys in Upstairs, Downstairs.

The "yellow paper scroll" end credits are even more fitful than usual in this episode when they suddenly rise into the air in mid-flow so as not to obscure the on-screen action!

This episode is also known as Crossing the Road and Phoning the Doctor.

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Episode 4

Tx: 8/3/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 24/2/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Cyril Shaps (Kenny), Neil McCarthy (Bedford), John Caesar (Train Guard).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), Dave Brinnicombe (Film Sound), William Symon (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Ian Rawnsley (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank and Betty are embarking on a second honeymoon. Frank is in the station toilet and manages to miss the train. He ends up running for it and grabbing hold of the back of the train. After being dragged along the platform, he is eventually pulled inside by the angry guard and returned to Betty.

The guest-house they are staying in is somewhat dilapidated and Frank manages to tear the flimsy bedroom lino whilst moving the bed. In the process of trying to disguise this, he manages to destroy most of the contents of his room. He decides to swap his broken wardrobe, dirty bedspread and torn mat with those in the opposite room. The room is occupied by a somewhat effeminate psychic who is convinced the strange disappearance of the contents of his room are an attempt by his dead grandfather to contact him. After a long struggle, Frank and Betty are eventually ready to go to bed. However, the floorboards under the bed are rotten and the bed collapses. Luckily, Frank has given the proprietor a false name and address since this sort of thing once happened before to him and his mother (Frank: "The bed was rotten anyway. We were up all night flushing the mattress down the toilet.") Betty and Frank climb down the hole in the floor to the hotel bar and secretly make their escape, wrecking the bar in the process.

Without a doubt, the best of all the Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em episodes which is ironic since it is one of the cheapest and most theatrical. In best Laurel and Hardy tradition, the initial problem (torn lino in this case) is quite minor but attempts to put this right lead to a mounting series of disasters, each designed to build on the one before. With the arguable exception of the slightly forced climactic destruction of the hotel's bar, the execution is flawless - each of Crawford's tumbles looking effortlessly accidental.

Running jokes play an important part of the story, with Frank gradually amassing a pile of bits of hotel property that he has broken or ruined, ready to be surreptitiously "taken out in the morning". Cyril Shaps turns in a wonderful performance as the only other apparent guest in the hotel - a nervous and outrageously camp dabbler in spiritualism. Altogether now..."Mister Bedford!...MISTER BEDFORD!!!"

This episode is also known as Going on Holiday.

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Episode 5

Tx: 15/3/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 5/3/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Elisabeth Sladen (Judy), Norman Mitchel (Jackson), Elizabeth Begley (Mrs White), Deddie Davies (Miss Thomas), Kate Brown (Mrs Griffin), Ralph Watson (Mr Griffin), Daphne Oxenford (Nurse Shaw), John D Collins (Dr Boyde), Rosemary Da Costa (Nurse Davis), James Bulloch (Dr Roberts), Julia Breck (Nurse Taylor).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), John Gatland (Film Sound), William Symon (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Make up), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Bryan Ellis (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Betty is ill in hospital and Frank intends to visit her. He stops off at the greengrocer's to buy her some fruit. After much confusion with money, the shop assistant gives Frank the fruit free of charge in order to get rid of him, although he manages to cause an avalanche of oranges before he finally leaves the shop.

Returning home, Frank finds the back door is stuck and has to climb in through the window. Magically, the back door finally works loose as Frank is crouching on the other side and smashes itself over his back. Frank then sets about preparing his lunch: steak and kidney pudding and a single tomato. However, the pudding gets too hot and explodes, bringing down most of the kitchen shelving with it.

That afternoon at the hospital, Frank manages to spill some fruit squash on Betty's bedspread. He tries to surreptitiously swap this with another one in the same ward, but is mistaken by a doctor as the uncaring husband of another woman patient who has not been visited for many weeks. The doctor gives Frank a stern talking to and crossly tells him to take "his" wife home and care for her there. Frank returns that evening to find that all the other women on the ward have also decided to go home. He puts them all on a hospital bed to wheel them out but gets lost in the maze of hospital passages. On a sloping corridor, the bed goes out of control, catapulting Spencer down a chute and into an ambulance whereupon is he admitted to the hospital as a patient!

A slightly below-par episode. The main problem is the hospital bed sequences near the end which are not particularly amusing and suffer from some very obvious speeding-up of the film. Having said that, the earlier sequence where Frank attempts to cook himself a steak and kidney pudding is great fun, as we see the trouble he has been having coping by himself without Betty (I'm sure the solidified bad milk, congealed sausage and mouldy teapot contents must have a fair amount of students smirking in recognition).

If you are wondering where you have seen the greengrocer's shop assistant before - she played Sarah Jane Smith, assistant to Doctor Who in the mid-Seventies.

This episode is also known simply as The Hospital.

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Episode 6

Tx: 22/3/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 19/3/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), Jane Hylton (Mrs Fisher), Bernard Hepton (Webster), Elaine Garreau (Frank's Aunt), Roland MacLeod (Gasman), John Scott Martin (Brown).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), Bob Roberts (Film Sound), William Symon (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Ian Rawnsley (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank has job lost his job as a fireman after continually missing the fire-engine. He is depressed by this and convinced that he is a failure so Betty suggests that he goes to see a psychiatrist. As part of the session with the psychiatrist, Frank relates how he first met Betty at a riding school where he had been tossed from his horse into a pond. Frank and Betty's first proper date didn't go too well either; with Frank becoming trapped in the mechanism at a bowling alley before managing to tear the letter-box off his front door in an attempt to sneak Betty indoors without his aunt hearing.

Betty's mother's first meeting with Frank was also unsuccessful, with her mistaking him for a repair-man for her cooker. After demolishing the cooker, Frank managed to fall down her stairs, taking the carpet and banisters with him. These unhappy stories make the psychiatrist convinced that Frank really is a failure and that he can't offer any help. His initial beliefs confirmed, Frank leaves the surgery a happy man and is oblivious to warning shouts from a workman across the street. Seconds later he is buried under tons of gravel being dumped from the back of a lorry.

In this episode the framework of a visit to the psychiatrist is used to relate events of Frank's earlier life before he got married (the same idea would later be used to describe Frank's days in the air force in The RAF Reunion in the second season). The highlight is undoubtedly the well-remembered and perfectly executed sequence where a vacuum cleaner - which Frank has accidentally switched on - advances menacingly towards him, sending him tumbling down the stairs wrapping himself in the stair-carpet as he goes.

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Episode 7

Tx: 29/3/73: 2000-2030
VTR: 28/3/73

Cast: Michael Crawford (Frank Spencer), Michele Dotrice (Betty), George A Cooper (Bradshaw), Edward Hardwicke (Hooper), Dorothy Frere (Mrs Dobson), Geoffrey Adams (Clergyman), Jack Watson (George), Jay Neill (Jack), Peter Wickham (Policeman), Derek Ware (Window Cleaner), with: John Witty (Computer voice), Ronald MacLeod (Man at Van), and Reid Anderson & Donald Groves & David Aman & John Silo & Gordon Black & Juliet Phillips & Katherine Rosenwink & Elaine Williams & Elizabeth Broom (Workers in employment exchange).

Crew: Raymond Allen (Writer), James Balfour (Film Camera), William Symon (Film Editor), Michael Robbie (Costumes), Anna Chesterman (Makeup), Derek Slee (Lighting), John Lloyd (Sound), Peter Day (Visual Effects), Bryan Ellis (Design), Michael Mills (Production).

Frank's local labour exchange is under new management. The new manager, Mr Bradshaw, is told by his staff about the difficulty of finding Spencer a job that he can hold down. Bradshaw doesn't believe anybody can be that bad but begins to change his mind when Frank comes in reporting that he has lost his job as a window cleaner - the first day's work ending with Frank and his workmate hanging from a rope halfway down a tower block. Bradshaw is also told of another recent job that Frank had as a security guard where the factory was robbed whilst Frank was out looking for his guard dog which had ran off. Bradshaw sends Frank out on a new job as a removal man. However, on the first morning, Frank backs the removal lorry over the furniture being unloaded and thus soon finds himself back at the labour exchange.

Without any other options, Bradshaw employs Frank to help out at the labour exchange itself. Frank accidentally leaves the contents of a tea-urn running into the works of an expensive computer and blows it up. Once more Frank is fired and the manager of the labour exchange suggests Frank finds a job in Australia on a sheep farm.

Like the previous episode, this segment is told in the form of flashbacks - in this case to jobs that Frank has failed to master. However, it is the linking segments at the labour exchange that are the most amusing, particularly the part where Frank is relating his somewhat limited educational history (he only went to school for a year because his mother didn't want him to pick up any "dirty habits").

The actor who plays Mr Bradshaw, George A Cooper, is better known to thirtysomethings as the caretaker Mr Griffiths in Grange Hill during the eighties. Coincidentally, Edward Hardwicke, who plays Bradshaw's assistant, later turns up in a third season episode as the emigration officer who advises Frank about his desires to work on an Australian sheep station - this being the same job that he is suggested to try at the end of this episode.

Trivia: this is the only episode of Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em which doesn't end with Ronnie Hazelhurst's familiar piccolo theme music.

More trivia: Michael Crawford and stuntman Derek Ware made the newspapers when they were both nearly strangled during the window-cleaning portion of this episode and left 300 feet up the side of a London skyscraper after the cradle they were dangling from refused to budge - Crawford: "For what seemed like a long time, we were helpless, swinging out over London. All I could think about were my children. I remember feeling very cold and the sweat was pouring off me." The cameraman continued filming throughout this predicament and the results were included in the To Be Perfectly Frank documentary (qv).

This episode is also known as The Labour Exchange.

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