Another who preferred the radio show.
I'm an admirer of music hall and the stars - sadly now nearly all dead - who carried on the tradition in Variety. What a joy then to hear the not very old Steve Delaney as a kind of living throwback to an era that ended perhaps 80 years ago. It's all in the delivery - all those - pauses, that - pause - make the difference. Hia Count Arthur,is a wonderful mixture of performance and - pause- creativite writing. What he has done is to create the once popular entertainer in his twilight years when memories and bookings have dried up and he no longer a public figure. Not that the Count will acknowledge this change, he has retained all his overbearing self-confidence, much of his old vigour but much less of his brains and almost none of his memory. Old performers never die - they merely lose their marbles.The radio shows were uncluttered. Regulars who feature in the Counts life included: Geoffrey, dimwitted friend, the local butcher (the Count loved offal), and the proprietor of the local greasy spoon, were all minor characters. Steve Delaney's magic was convincly demonstrate what utter mahen could result when gross-error and enormous undaunted overbearing self-confidence coincided.That was the Count at his very best. I cannot imagine how Delaney worked out the convoluted plots in which comprehensive havoc was wreaked without apparent design. The Count's credo was: Never apologise, never explain - he didn't give a damn about anybody else, and in any case had such a faltering grasp of reality that explanation that anyone else would understand, was totally beyond him.
Graham Lineham to my mind was at his best with the IT Crowd. Here though he clutters and pads out the cast and plot with regulars who just have too much to say and no compelling logic that they should be there (why does the Greg Kinnear character's life revolve round Count Arthur?). A real life Count Arthur = mega-egotist - would be complaining to his agent and his writer, that the others are stealing his scenes and his thunder. After all these years, Count Arthur is still the star - and we should never (be allowed) forget it!
score 6/10
trimmerb1234 19 May 2017
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3711293/14460
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