Americans adapt U.K. showssuccessfully

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33442, 25 January 1974, Page 4

Americans adapt U.K. shows — successfully

Three adaptations of British comedies are going a long way towards staxing off disaster in the present American television season, which has seen one new show after another fall x ictim to the ratings clobbering machine.

■ The three are “All in the I Family” ('■ J ill Death Vs Do :Part”), “Sanford and Son" (“Steptoe and Sun"), and “Lotsa Luck" (“On the Buses”). i “All in the Family” about a loud-mouthed bigot, and "Sanford and Son,” a black adaptation of. the story of two Cockney junk dealers, are already established successes. “Lotsa Luck.” taken from the British series about, the I girl and money problems of a Cockney bus driver, is new this season. The National Broadcasting Company has made it lead-off ' programme at 8 p.m. on I Monday night, a spot rarely given to a new show. i The main role of Stan l(Stan Butler in the original land Stan Belmont in the ;American version) is played iby comedian Dom Deluise. The Americans who originally discovered British tele--1 vision as a rich source of original and provocative ■material for American series were producer-writers Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin. GROWING STALE Lear, looking for a show j to liven up television, which I was growing stale with repetition of “Till Death Us Do Part.” He read the scripts and decided it was worth trying for United States audiences. The central character who emerged was watered down from the ranting and sneering of Alf Garnett but even so “All in the. Family” became a landmark production and changed the course of United States television. American audiences, faced with wisecracks about sex. race and religion — topics that had previously been .taboo — scarcely knew what jto make of it. at first. Then the show took off. ft led the national viewer rating by wide margins — and is still number one. ARCHIE LIKEABLE Explaining the softening of the character. Lear says of his own Archie Bunker: “I’ve been criticised because Archie is likeable but I ■think Alf Garnett was onedimensional. The only reason you might, like Garnett is because he is totally unlikeable. He didn’t have a redeeming feature.” Lear modelled his! cigarette-smoking bigot on' his father. “My father and I had the isame kind of arguments,” he! isays. The Lear-Yorkin team jthen worked over a second 8.8. C. show, translating “Steptoe and Son” into the bantering humour of the American black. “SANFORD AND SON” “Sanford and Son” almost, equalled "All in the Family”] in initial ratings. ■ A second producer-writer j pair, Bill Persky and Sam 'Denoff, stepped in to try! .their hand at an adaptation of “On the Buses.” They retained the central i characters of the British (show but for both, artistic and financial reasons found jit easier to develop their own stories rather than work from the British .scripts.

“It was just too difficult, itrying to turn a Cockney joke into a Brooklyn joke," says Persky, Deluise. instead of being a bus driver like his British counterpart, works in the lost and found department of a dreary New York City bus depot. Persky says he believes British comedy series must undergo this adaptation to the American scene before! they can be successful in America. "British comedies are injsular in their appeal. They |are much more specific than' jours.” Denoff. a long-time admirer of British television, isays this directness is what Ihe admires about it. I “British television's atti-i I tilde to life is very adult J I mature and civilised. They' idon’t shock about silly I ithings the way we do."