Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
7.1
Three old men from Yorkshire who have never grown up face the trials of their fellow town citizens and everyday life and stay young by reminiscing about the days of their youth and attempting feats not common to the elderly.
ርልዪረ reviewedJanuary 24, 2025
Beyond doubt LOTSW is a comedy classic. Far from just being a series of gentle titters it has a considerable amount of belly laughs, and the humour, zany characterisation and outrageous antics are maintained throughout the show's entirety. It's also testament to the superlative creative combination of writer Roy Clarke and (for the most part) producer / director Alan J W Bell.
This boxset has the lot: all the episodes (including the pilot on the last disk), the Christmas specials (interspaced throughout the running sequence) and all the episodes. However, that's all it has. I was a little disappointed that there were no extras. Considering that LOTSW was perhaps the world's longest running comedy and has won the hearts and following of thousands of fans I thought it would be better commemorated than this. Even just a few extras would have been welcome, but there's nothing of the sort here. It's very much a bare bones production.
Saying that, it's nice to have everything all together in the one place. However, the outer packaging is somewhat flimsy and soon shows signs of wear with repeated handling. At least the disks are contained in three reasonably sturdy plastic cases so can be left out while using them rather than being continually put in and taken out of the outer casing.
Also, I don't know what's gone wrong with the sequencing as the series are slightly out of order with what's printed on the disks, which isn't helped by the packaging stating there's thirty-two series when in fact only thirty one were ever made. This seems to be a careless oversight and should have been corrected before releasing the set. There also seems to be a problem with the way the disks have been copied, as on some the colour balance isn’t right as anything red seems to be over-saturated, with a sort of murky hue hanging over the picture. Everything is watchable and it isn’t a major issue, but it’s a pity that we don’t get to enjoy the full splendour of the wonderful settings in perfect colour on all the disks. I’ve tried the problematical disks on three different DVD players and they’re the same on all devices. Some of the earlier episodes may have been troubled with less than perfect colour but the modern ones shouldn’t have been. I doubt this is the way the series have been produced.
Everything considered, I feel this is a half-hearted affair -- enough to make the episodes available but that's all. However, if you can see past the shortcomings then there's hours and hours of first-rate comedy awaiting you. I watch at least two episodes a night and have been watching them for ages and am still immensely enjoying them. The characters are warm, likeable and very funny, and there's sufficient variation in the plots to make them continually interesting and unexpected, with many surprises. There's the original Blamire, Compo, Clegg, Foggy (twice), Seymour, Truly, Edie, Wesley, Howard, Pearl, Marina, Ivy, Sid, Milburn, Nora, Wally, Glenda, Barry, Eli, Auntie Wainwright, Smiler, Tom, Billy, Alvin, Hobbo and Entwhistle, along with all the other characters and guest appearances -- all of which are highly memorable. There's so many classic moments here that it's hard to remember them all. Think of the submarine episode, the waterskiing episode, the bath episode, the hang-gliding episode, the extraterrestrial episode or the mangle one -- they're all included.
There’s some truly touching moments as well around the time of the real life death of Bill Owen who played Compo, as Compo’s fictional death had to be incorporated into the storyline after his passing as they were in the middle of filming the series. As such, because it was so close, some of the emotions portrayed by the cast were, according to producer Alan J W Bell, real ones. Like all great comedies the writer has an ability to add human elements into the script, and writer Roy Clarke does this very well in the trilogy that explains Compo’s death and leads up to his funeral. For me, these are some of my favourite episodes as although sombre they’re still funny, which is a fitting tribute to this much-loved actor.
LOTSW is all good clean family fun set in some of West Yorkshire's finest scenery (which really comes into its own in when the picture quality is okay and we get a lot of gorgeous sweeping vistas in stunning colour, which greatly adds to the enjoyment and appeal of the show). There's everything to like about LOTSW. The writing, production, characterisation and surprises are spot on, and are some of the best in British comedy. As such, I still recommend the boxset for the series alone (as you do get around 295 episodes on a lot of disks). If you can get by without the extras then go and buy it.
Before finishing, I'll explain my rating. It's definitely five stars for the series but only three for the presentation, so I've settled on four stars.