Dear John

On Monday, I received my DVD boxset of the classic 1980’s BBC sitcom, Dear John. I have fond memories of watching the show with my brother all those years ago (I was only 11 – bless!)
Each night this week, I watched one disc from the box. Monday night was series 1, episodes 1-4; Tuesday night was the last three of that debut season. Wednesday night was the first half of series two and Thursday was the remainder plus the Christmas special which turned out to be the finale. I was always under the impression that this was due to the unfortunate death of the lead actor, Ralph Bates, but he didn’t actually pass away until four years later so I don’t know why I had that notion in my head.

The basic premise sounds depressing, but stick with me…
John is divorced by his wife when she leaves him for his best mate, Mike. John moves into a small rented room and having been shunned by his cliquey friends (all of whom prefer ‘couples’ when socialising) decides to join a club for the divorced and separated. The people he meets are quite an eclectic bunch with whom he only has the one thing in common – being alone.

The series was remade in America a year or so later as Dear John USA (God! The geniuses who came up with that title…) and that ran for four seasons. Suffice to say, I never went out of my way to watch that. Maybe it was good, who knows? Not I.

Although I hadn’t seen it for well over 20 years (at least) I was surprised to find so many comedic lines flooding back to me. I was amazed to find myself quoting them as they were spoken. The party held by Mrs Boyd-Peters has one of the all-time classic moments of the series, but I simply cannot tell you about it here as it needs to be enjoyed when viewed properly. Still, I chimed in with the humdinger of a quote when the time came.

Ralph Bates played John Lacey to perfection. He was beautifully bewildered, depressed and essentially flawed but still rather lovable at the same time.
Belinda Lang’s Kate was sassy and acerbic – one can see why she ended up getting the lead in 2.4 Children.
Peter Denyer’s Ralph is very much a caricature but once again, he was played with heart and the episode with the death of his friend Terry is splendid.
Rachel Bell is one of those actresses that I get excited about when I see her name in a cast list. I think she is mesmeric to watch – an under-rated comedienne who can play the snobbish social climber as well as Penelope Keith any day. As Louise, the woman who runs the 1-2-1 social club, she is the epitome of the Eighties’ middle-class yuppie wannabe and her overt interest in people’s sex lives is genuinely entertaining.
All of these elements could have made for an adequate and enjoyable situation comedy, but there was one more ingredient which strengthened the mix and that was Kirk St Moritz, played by Peter Blake.
He was the arrogant, cocky, vain, Lothario who could have been the love child of John Travolta and The Fonz. Once again, this character could have been all clichés and a one-joke wonder, but John Sullivan’s writing and Peter Blake’s performance gave Kirk a much deeper history. This layering of character resulted in a beautiful moment in the finale which should have any viewer grinning like a lunatic.

Although there were a variety of other characters throughout the run, there was one other performance I really want to mention – that is Irene Prador as Mrs Lemenski, John’s Polish neighbour. For two series, she was the one to criticise John and his crazy way of talking to himself. She would often call him a ‘Looney Man’ or some such insulting term. However, her role in the Christmas finale is as beautiful and touching as anything one could ever hope for in a festive episode and I genuinely shed a tear as I relived those scenes again.

Goodness, it is hard writing about the show when I don’t want to give anything away to those who have yet to discover it on DVD.

In fairness, it wasn’t ever going to be the greatest situation comedy of all-time and there were some moments which missed the mark. Even after the praise I have heaped upon it in this post, I cannot deny that the first half of series two is its lowest point (but it does improve by the end!)

If you have never seen it, give it a go. The series is available on DVD in the UK from Acorn Media and, yes, it may seem a little dated, but it is sure as hell funnier than some of the tripe that gets churned out these days.



Thanks to a happy coincidence, Kirsty MacColl also wrote a number called ‘Dear John’, so I didn’t need to find some tenuous link for the title of this post in my ongoing task of naming all posts after one her songs. Huzzah.