No, Honestly

STARTING WITH A simple enough premise this series manages to elevate its comic delight to a level that bigger budgets and guest stars couldn't accomplish. And just what is this mystery element? If one only knew, we could bottle it and sell it to Producers in London, Paris, New York, Hollywood and Bombay.

THE "TOP SECRET" central tenet of NO, HONESTLY is a weekly half hour of a now older couple; who reminisce about their days as a stupid, young newlywed couple. That's it and it is skillfully brought off by the co-mingling of good writing, fine acting and masterful characterization.

HOW THIS IS accomplished is certainly due, at least in part, to the fact that the married Couple on screen, "C.D. and Clara" were then and are now in fact Man & Wife. The very talented folks are John Alderton and Pauline Collins. Their chemistry, energy and charisma make the characters jump off the screen and into real life.

ANOTHER ASPECT OF the episodes is the similarity to the old act performed and perfected by George Burns & Gracie Allen. From the Vaudeville Houses, Radio Program, Movies and Television, it was Straight Man George's deadpan and the Naiveté of Gracie that served as the engine in driving their act to the top.

THE SIMILARITY BECOMES obvious in many of the sequences. We do well recall a particularly relevant example. In one episode, when C.D. mentions the word, "collateral", Clara asks; "Isn't that the stuff that Americans get in their blood from eating too much butter?"