Nellie Pickersgill is called to her ailing father Jed's pub to take over, but is The Chelsea pub ready for the straight talking Northerner?
If you're a fan of Nearest and Dearest, or of Hylda Baker herself, then this is a must watch show. It's a very funny watch even today, plenty of laughs, plenty of big characters, plenty of Nellie-isms. Baker is magical throughout, until the penultimate episode where she got injured and left the show.
Some of it felt as though it was lifted directly from Nearest and Dearest, and rehashed, even the premise of the show itself, bit it does work. Even Gilbert, he's basically a copy of Walter. Every time she asks him what he's come as, I laughed out loud.
The humour is camp, a little bawdy, and for 1975 it would have been somewhat risque, it's obviously very tame by today's standards, but it's still very funny.
I loved the variety of characters, sure they're a bit dated, and attitudes have changed a lot, but they're a funny bunch. It felt as though the show was well meaning.
Series one is very funny, series two is terrific, don't expect anything much from series three, sadly it ends in poor fashion.
There were multiple cast changes throughout, personally I liked the second series, which featured Wendy Richards, I thought she was really good.
8/10.
