Bowler

1973 - United Kingdom

Stanley Bowler has a finger in every profitable pie, and his money can buy everything but the thing he wants most: class. His unstoppable ambition to move in higher social circles sees him embarking on a series of ill-fated schemes - including opening his very own gentlemen's club, conspicuously embracing high culture, and even trying to set himself up as a laird. Sadly, while Bowler stumbles from one faux pas to another, the doors of Society remain very firmly closed...Written as a spin-off from The Fenn Street Gang (itself a sequel to Please Sir!) but presented as a 'prequel', Bowler chronicles the early life of former Fenn Street pupil Peter Craven's shady boss, Stanley Bowler (George Baker), an East End villain whose social aspirations fail consistently due to his lack of ability to grasp the qualities he needs such as refinement and elegance of manner. 

The series was written by veteran sitcom writers John Esmonde and Bob Larbey and co-starred Renny Lister as Stanley's estranged wife Doreen, Fred Beauman as his valet, Reg, and future EastEnders star Gretchen Franklin as his cockney mum. Soap stars Wendy Richard and Johnny Briggs are also among the guest stars. (Network DVD). 

Published on November 30th, 2018. Review: Network DVD reproduced with permission..

Read Next...

Lt. Kojak was a tough cop with a smart mouth and wits even sharper than his top flight dress sense.

Also released in 1973

Two fictional detectives go off in search of clues to one of the world's greatest unsolved cases.

Also released in 1973

Series about a magazine agony aunt who also runs her own radio phone-in and who, like Dr Frazier Crane many years later, could solve everyone's problems except her own

Also tagged Sitcom

BBC children's series about a mischievous 12 year-old girl, Penelope Arbuckle, and her imaginary witch friend who only Penelope (and the TV audience) could see.

Also released in 1973

Developed from a sketch in the TV series French and Saunders in which Saunders played a baseball capped parent berated by her prim and proper daughter (French), the pilot episode was greeted by one TV executive with the comment, "I don't think women being drunk is funny."

Also tagged Sitcom

A male student shares a flat with two attractive girls with hilarious consequences.

Also released in 1973

BAFTA-nominated comedy After Henry followed the comfortable middle-class lives of three women; except that, for one of them, life wasn't all that comfortable...

Also tagged Sitcom

British critics have called 'All In The Family' "a reworked, far less provocative version" of the show it was based on, BBC's 'Till Death Us Do Part'...

Also tagged Sitcom

In the year 2003 humans have established a number of bases on the moon.

Also released in 1973