Lockdown, Lowdown… Ringside Report Looks Back at the TV Show Lovejoy

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

Television rogues are by their very nature, appealing. Add to that quintessential English snobbery and you can get quite the heady mixture.

A note about snobbery…

In England, it is believed that a certain type of person, the gentry, upper class, have the correct breeding and right attitude for running the country which coupled with what is known as a cut glass accent, is the stereotype of choice for anyone out there who wants to make fun of them. They are typified by having had a private education, gone to the best universities and understand just which the correct wine is to go with the best food; they are also blessed with having an intimate knowledge of both. Exclusively they have titles – Lords, Ladies, Viscounts, baronesses etc. They make their money in ways that do not include the dirtiness of commerce and real work whilst they have a tradition and history filled with priceless artefacts; in essence they are the keepers of England’s best historical treasure – antiques.

If you are an oily oik who did not go to school much, has no idea what the right wine is, though understands how to drink it, can survive on the worst types of food, but have titles, none of them complimentary, makes some money, but never enough but knows more about antiques than most of the gentry put together, you are threat. You are Lovejoy.

Based on a series of excellent novels by John Grant, who wrote as Jonathon Gash, Lovejoy is the upstart antiques dealer who, by fair, though more often foul means manages to deal and wheel his way through life. It was an independent program commissioned through the BBC which had Ian McShane – Al Swearingen of Deadwood fame in later years – in the title role. Rough rogues shall always beget Lady interest, and this was to include a character who was a very real Lady. His love interest was Lady Jane Felsham, played by Phyllis Logan – Mrs Hughes, then Carson of Downtown Abbey fame.

Through the majority of the 6 seasons and no fewer than 71 episodes the on/off romance between the two of them was as much the driving force as whether or not Lovejoy shall escape with the loot, lose his liberty when finally caught by the police or simply continue to operate within the confines of some law which allowed skulduggery.

It began being broadcast in 1986 and ran right up until the end of 1994. Unusually it had a five year gap between series 1 and series 2 hut when it got back together to continue its run, the principal actors all returned to take up where their characters had left off!

I loved it and would always look forward to my weekly visit to the world of Ming vases and obscure cutlery. The two principal characters were augmented by Eric Catchpole, played by Chris Jury who was Lovejoy’s assistant, never especially bright, Tinker Dill, played by Dudley Sutton who was the barker and tout, often helping to plot alongside or warn off Lovejoy. Lovejoy needed a nemesis and he got it in the shape of occasional character, Charlie Gumbert who was the owner of a local auction house who hated Lovejoy with an impressive degree of passion – played by Malcolm Tierney.

By the end of series 5, the narrative was struggling to maintain the beauty and innocence of its beginning and Eric moved on, a new apprentice, Beth Taylor, played by Diane Parish was to take over in the final series. Changes also happened in series 5 where Lovejoy was given someone to love within his price range in the form of Charlotte Cavendish played by Caroline Langrishe as the good Lady vanished.

But, as with all great ideas that played to the times, this was a series that was beginning to show itself less of its time and more of its age. The 1980’s was filled with people looking to make fast money. Lovejoy was operating in a system that would support him. By the mid 90’s we had moved on and compassion as becoming he overriding motivation for people. Lovejoy stopped fitting the zeitgeist!

Lovejoy was also the first time that I had seen an actor break the fourth wall and talk directly to the camera. It was innovative of its time but by the mid 90’s beginning to feel dated and old hat. The intimacy it brought the series, and the character enhanced the pleasure in watching it – you b=came wholly invested in his tactics and his schemes.

It has appeared again on our Sky satellite TV channels in its entirety. I have started at series 1, episode 1 a wee while ago and shall keep trying, right on until its end.

It was no police procedural and the British sense of supporting the underdog goes to show you that we are not all as impressed by the snobbery of the upper classes as some would think we are. Lovejoy was part of all of us and we wanted this anti authority figure to win every time he set out to win. It made him a great character but not somebody who should ever go into politics. No, crooked businessman should ever be encouraged to do that…

British television is a curious affair. Begun through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) it is funded through the universal license fee. In essence, if you wanted to watch the television , you had to pay the license fee. The BBC got it all and is state run, albeit at arms-length. Then came along commercial television in the form of the Independent Television (ITV) in 1955. Designed to bring a bit of competition to the BBC, it was paid for through advertising but still free to air… well they didn’t add another license fee to it. By the time that I was born, 1965, there was BBC1, BBC2 and ITV. And that was it. It was still years before Bruce Springsteen would moan that there were 55 channels and nothing on but here in the UK, we kept this going until in 1982, we added a fourth channel and in 1997, a fifth. With sparkling imagination, they were called Channel Four and ehm Channel Five… In between came Sky and we understood what Springsteen meant. And so, my childhood and leading up to early adulthood we had three options… But the programs made were exceptionally good. And so, here is some critical nostalgia as the lockdown has brought a plethora of reruns, new formats and platforms and old classics trying to make their way back into our consciousness as broadcasters flood their schedules with classics… or are they classics at all? Let me take you through an armchair critics’ view of what we have to see, to find out… Welcome to the Lockdown Lowdown…

[si-contact-form form=’2′]