A condensed version of this article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
The external world of Reginald Iolanthe Perrin may be deeply rooted in the 1970s, with its flares, sideburns and multicoloured dial phones, but his internal life of midlife crises ensures his status as a timeless screen figure.
Spearheaded by the comedy titan that was Leonard Rossiter, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin began 50 years ago today, and introduced viewers to a surreal send-up of commuterdom, packed with Walter Mitty daydreams, flatulent furniture and “Great”, “Super” and “11 minutes late” catchphrases.
Adapted by David Nobbs from his own novels, it saw Perrin reacting with escalating eccentricity to the madness of middle management at Sunshine Desserts. Dictating rude letters, having hippo hallucinations, pumping loganberry essence into the river where his boss is fishing. Things like that.
Leonard Rossiter as Reginald Perrin in the throes of a meltdown, with Pauline Yates as his worried wife Elizabeth; right, a more relaxed portrait of the actor. Radio Times Archive.
“I loved Leonard Rossiter,” says comedy writer Simon Nye. “He was completely original and obviously a bit weird. His screen persona is sort of shifty but honest – you can’t take your eyes off him.”
Ronnie Barker said of the source novel that he laughed 283 times and cried twice, and there is a darkness to the premise – after all, the lead character is driven to the point of faking his own death in order to reinvent himself. The phrase “doing a Reggie Perrin” soon entered common parlance, and was widely quoted in relation to John Darwin’s disappearance and its 2022 ITV dramatisation The Thief, His Wife and the Canoe. (Another line that you’ll still hear people using today is “I didn’t get where I am today…”, which was spouted freely by Reggie’s hectoring boss CJ, played brilliantly in the original by John Barron.)
“Reggie is suffering but he’s also never less than entertaining,” Nye tells RT, “so you feel for him but you know he’s not going to be boring. He’s basically lacking a filter, and too frank for his own good in a world which is scared of honesty.”
Family outing: Rossiter on location for a safari park scene with Reggie’s son-in-law Tom (Tim Preece), daughter Linda (Sally-Anne Spencer) and wife Elizabeth. Photo taken in 1976 by Don Smith for Radio Times.
Nye had already enjoyed success with Men Behaving Badly and cult favourite How Do You Want Me? when the BBC approached him about updating Perrin in the noughties: “Although I knew in a way that reboots are on a hiding to nothing, it was just too exciting a prospect to turn down. I had worked as a translator for a Swiss bank in my 20s and commuted to the city for a couple of years, so I understood the madness of corporate life.”
He was teamed with original writer Nobbs, a man he calls “affable and lovely”. “He was in his mid-70s when we worked on this, so it’s fair to say he was happy for me to take the lead on the writing, but he was always there to tell me when I strayed too far from what he considered to be core Reggie values and style.”
While in Fall and Rise, Reggie was apparently happily married to Elizabeth (Pauline Yates) but fantasising about his secretary Joan (a pre-Corrie-fame Sue Nicholls), the revival saw him wedded to Nicola (Fay Ripley) but thinking about colleague Jasmine (Lucy Liemann).
Leonard Rossiter appearing on the front of Radio Times in November 1978 – a strike meant the magazine had to be printed in black and white – and, right, the first-episode listing.
Nye continues: “I had seriously loved all the TV series and then read the books and loved Reggie’s world even more. It’s rare for a writer to knock two genres out of the park, but David Nobbs did it. I started as a novelist, and turned my two novels into TV series [Men Behaving Badly and Wideboy, which became Frank Stubbs Promotes], but my novels are nothing like as original or funny as David’s.”
Swapping the business backdrop of puddings for razors, Reggie Perrin offered a different take, with Martin Clunes sporting the suit-and-tie straitjacket. “The two shows rest to a large extent on the qualities of their main characters. Martin and Leonard are very different performers, style-wise, but they share a sort of restlessness and dangerous intelligence which you know are going to get them into trouble.
“Martin is a bit of a maverick himself, so he really got the idea that society in general and capitalism in particular don’t know what to do with people who step out of line like Reggie.”
So, for the new version, what had Nye been most keen to preserve from 70s Perrin? “The sense that most jobs are insane! They involve ridiculous workplace rituals and need us all to suppress our personalities.”
The Rossiter sitcom ran for three series and 21 episodes, the Clunes variant for two and 14 respectively. “I would have written Reggie Perrin as long as the BBC had an appetite for it, but for a reinvention of this kind I’d say two series was about right.”
Simon Nye today, and how two of his comedies were covered in Radio Times; Men Behaving Badly in 1994, when it moved from ITV to BBC, and How Do You Want Me?
Like the original, Reggie Perrin had a strong cast, combining established players with up-and-comers: “It was great working with big new talents like Nick Mohammed and, if she doesn’t mind me describing her like this, experienced and hilarious old hands like Fay Ripley.”
It also chimed with Nye’s own comedies about men with crises, both big and small. Asked about his other shows, Nye replies, “I can’t think of any series which I’ve not enjoyed making – there’s always that gut-level thrill when you get a green light to make a show. But How Do You Want Me? has a special place in my heart. Dylan Moran, playing an urban Irishman feeling disoriented by living in the Sussex countryside, is a bit of a variation on Reggie Perrin.”
Radio Times was a big fan of the darkly funny How Do You Want Me?, which ran for just 12 bittersweet episodes and co-starred the much missed Charlotte Coleman and Emma Chambers, plus Peter Serafinowicz, Mark Heap and Clive Merrison.
Any current projects? “I’m busier than I’ve ever been, happily,” says Nye, “but I won’t tempt fate by mentioning any projects. Crime has dominated TV for many years and I’m sensing that viewers would finally prefer to watch characters who are not killing each other for our entertainment.”
As for what has made the birthday boy so enduring, he adds: “We love any character who questions the status quo or shines a new light on the way we live our lives. Reggie Perrin does that, despite just wanting a normal life full of love, sane relationships and honesty.
“Maybe we are all a bit Reggie, all aware that modern life is basically absurd and makes fools of us all.”
Radio Times Archive.
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