One of my absolute favourite British comedies starring one of my absolute favourite British actresses – Dame Judi Dench.
Aaron and I were in a bit of a “tea and crumpets” mood this weekend, so we rented some British movies. We are both fans of Charles Dickens, so we rented David Copperfield starring a young Daniel Radcliffe and Dame Maggie Smith – another one of my favourite British actresses (Prof. McGonagall in Harry Potter; Mother Superior in Sister Act, and many more). We haven’t watched this movie yet but we have however watched As Time Goes By and laughed so hard every few minutes.
Jean: Any post for me?
Lionel: Yes
Jean: Oh, it’s a post card. Who is it from?
Lionel: I don’t know. It’s addressed to you.
Jean: The message is next to the name and address!You’re telling me you didn’t read it?
Lionel: The card is addressed to you. It might be something private.
Jean: Who writes something private on the back of a post card???
For me, it was so wonderfully reminiscent to revisit the British side of my Anglo-Indian background and be able to laugh at the the “brit wit”. This was one of my favourite TV shows to watch and Geoffrey Palmer who plays Lionel is so hilarious! If you are ever in the mood for some good, clean British comedy – this is the one to rent. We actually rented this from a little video store in Berkeley called Videots, sort of rhymes with Idiots but they hardly were. They knew where things were, very helpful. I was beside myself with joy at the discovery of a BBC section and Aaron was beside himself with joy with the discovery of Free Popcorn… basically we were both beside ourselves with Joy – hope Joy liked that…ha ha ha. (lame attempt at joke.)
As a little girl, I grew up watching British television and being Anglo-Indian, I was also raised with the same sense of humour. It is one thing to be raised as an Anglo-Indian but picture a 10 year old who could repeat limericks from memory and have no idea what they are saying sometimes…yeah, that’s right. For some unknown reason, we watched all TV shows including Are You Being Served? – a pretty riske show with Mr. Humpries being a gay man on the show and in real life and of course, the Benny Hill show. So this is the humor that we knew to be our very own – dry, sarcastic, quick, innuendo wit.
At times, however, such humour can seem a bit puzzling to non-British speakers of English.
If you have watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail, you know that however nonsensical it may seem to be, you find yourself repeating dialogues verbatim.
Some of my other British favourites include Keeping Up Appearances, Black Adder with Rowan Atkinson, Fawlty Towers, You Rang M’Lord?, Mr. Bean, To the Manor Born, Allo Allo, Mind Your Language…
If you are bored and would love to pretend you are British, go rent these at Videots in Berkeley, CA and have some great laughs…
Humor might be the only thing to get you through some tough times
Keep Smiling!
Ta Ta.
