Lucybespro It is a performances centric movie

Intcatinfo A Masterpiece!

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Honda Seller I liked this series. I love British humour.This show is completely silly but hilarious.I knew of a number of the main actors from another series called You Rang M'Lord which is funny too but sadly, youtube only has a few episodes there.I watched the entire Hi de Hi series on youtube which was great.I noticed the writing started to get old in the last few seasons with a lot of repetitive themes. It went especially downhill in the last season which is common with TV series.I was so disappointed that they didn't write a better and more creative ending. Instead, they wrapped it up in a rather hum drum and nonsensical manner.I think a better and more logical happy ending would have been for the rich man who led the camp to somehow have his family take him back into the fold, in spite of his marriage, because they needed him to come and run their farm and amusement park.That way his wife (the Welsh woman who was the best yellow coat around) could have helped run things and the majority of the rest of the staff could have all been given jobs there. This would have been a much better and a very happy and settled ending rather than the half hazard one they wrote.That's my two cents.

ShadeGrenade I missed the early editions of 'Hi-De-Hi!'. I think it must have been the title that put me off. In those days, the Welsh language editions of 'The Radio Times' only used to print titles of certain shows without imparting information as to what they were actually about. 'Hi-De-Hi!' suggested to me a bad quiz show hosted by Leslie Crowther or some inane U.S. import. I caught up with it eventually, and was surprised to find the names Jimmy Perry and David Croft attached. As was the case with 'Dad's Army' and 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', Perry based it on personal experience, in this case his time as a Redcoat at a Butlins' holiday camp. Before cheap air travel came along in the '60's, camps such as these sprang up along British coastlines, providing entertainment for working class families and earning millions for their owners. ( As a matter of interest, I worked in one such camp in the '80's as a chef - Barry Island, South Wales - known to all and sundry as 'Shag Land' for reasons I won't go into! )The premise is this: in 1959, archaeology professor 'Jeffrey Fairbrother' ( Simon Cadell ) becomes bored with stuffy Cambridge and applies for a job as entertainments manager of Maplin's Crimpton-On-Sea camp, a post he is ill equipped to handle. Life is one long round of spaghetti eating contests and people in silly costumes being thrown in swimming pools. His staff includes resident comic 'Ted Bovis' ( Paul Shane ), his out-upon sidekick 'Spike Dixon' ( Jeffrey Holland ), miserable Punch and Judy man 'Mr.Partridge' ( Leslie Dwyer ), snobby ballroom dancers 'Barry' ( Barry Howard ) and 'Yvonne Stuart-Hargreaves' ( Diane Holland ), and the unforgettable 'Gladys Pugh' ( Ruth Madoc ), a fiery Welsh woman who lusted after Fairbrother at every opportunity. Bubbly Su Pollard stole the show though as cleaner 'Peggy Ollerenshaw', whose driving ambition was to be a 'Yellowcoat' ( all the important staff members wore them ). A number of sexy girls occupied these coats too, most notably Nikki Kelly's long-legged 'Sylvia Garnsey' and statuesque Rikki Howard's 'Betty Whistler'. We never saw Joe Maplin. He communicated to his staff in the form of ungrammatical missives, which poor Jeffrey was forced to read aloud. "Hi-De-Hi!" was the campers' greeting, usually met with the equally inane 'Ho-De-Ho!. One fan was the late Sir Fred Pontin.I always found Bovis the most convincing of these as well as the most tragic, like Archie Rice he was the comedian whose big break never came, reduced to cracking corny gags for the amusement of drunken late-night audiences. He took advantage of his position to indulge in a few perks, and in one memorable episode Fairbrother's patience snapped and he sounded him out: "Lies! Lies! Lies! Lies!". A father and son type relationship developed between Ted and Spike over the course of the series.As with every other Perry/Croft production, the cast were excellent, particularly Cadell, Holland and Shane. Ruth Madoc's prissy 'Gladys' was much imitated in school playgrounds, while Leslie Dwyer's misanthropic 'Mr.Partridge' and Felix Bowness' jockey 'Fred Qulley' also proved popular. The visual gag everyone remembers came in the episode 'Charity Begins At Home' as drunken Mr.Partridge spots a pantomime horse riding a real one along the beach. Looking at the bottle of whiskey in his hand, he decides to stick with it and instead throws away the banana he had been eating! With its frothy blend of '50's nostalgia and saucy postcard gags, 'Hi-De'Hi' was a big hit for B.B.C.-1 in the '80's, resulting in a massive upturn in bookings for Butlins and Pontins. John Le Mesurier made a guest appearance, as did satirist John Fortune. Cadell left after the fifth series to return to the theatre. His replacement was David Griffin's 'Squadron Leader Clive Dempster', a war hero reduced to living off borrowed money and with a liking for fast cars. Leslie Dwyer's death in 1986 robbed the show of one of its funniest characters. 'Carry On' star Kenneth Connor was brought in to replace him as 'Uncle Sammy'. Barry Howard was dropped, and Ben Aris stepped into his dancing shoes to play posh pig farmer 'Julian Dalrymple-Sykes'. The period setting occasionally caused problems; in one episode, Sylvia and Betty had to dive into the pool to rescue Peggy who for some reason was dressed as a shark. The revealing costumes they wore were wrong for that era. Still they looked great in them so who's complaining? In another, Ted sang the Tom Jones hit 'Delilah' to campers. It was not composed ( by Les Reed and Barry Mason, incidentally ) until 1968.Maplins closed its doors for good in 1988 - the camp decided to go upmarket, and the staff were told by Alec Foster ( Ewan Hooper ) that their services were no longer needed - and the last shot was that of Peggy ( now a Yellowcoat ) all alone, jumping into the air, and shouting the show's title one final time. I don't rate it as highly as Perry and Croft's other shows, but its popularity is undeniable. It was probably one of the last British sitcoms to generate tremendous public affection, mainly because it featured likable characters in a recognisable setting. Goodnight campers! Hi-de-Hi!

welshNick This is a classic example of what happens when a sit com is on TV for far far too long. Everything gets tired and the jokes start getting repeated over and over again. OK, from the start, the first couple of series were quite good. You had an Entertainment Manager (Simon Cadel) being pursued by his deputy played by Ruth Madoc, a cleaning lady wanting to become a yellow coat, an alcoholic child-hating Punch and Judy man, a bent Jockey, and a stand up comedian. As said earlier, it started well but went on way too long. Once Simon Cadel left it went downhill fast, you were getting dire story lines, and a new entertainments manager who Ruth Madoc (again) threw herself at. When a comedy is all filmed in one place there is a limit to the number of jokes that can be cracked. Unfortunately this went on so long every joke was cracked 3 or 4 times over. If this comedy had been stopped after 2 series it would have gone down as an all time classic. As it is, it will be largely remembered for the dreadful last few series.

SetzersGretsch Based to some extent on writers, David Croft and Jimmy Perry's, own experiences as Butlins Holiday Camp entertainers in the UK during the same timescale the programme follows, "Hi-De-Hi!" epitomises the 'slapstick, postcard humour" of post-war Britain. Set in the fictitious seaside town of Crimpton-on-Sea, "Hi-De-Hi" chronicles the comedic goings on within the Maplins Holiday Camp - one of many dotted along the British coast owned by the mega-rich, but never seen (on screen) Joe Maplin.Although the actual show began in 1980 with the pilot episode and ran until 1988 when the BBC deemed it too tame for it's cutting edge comedy department, seasons 1-5 focused on 1959 while seasons 6-9 spotlighted 1960 - a time when the old style British Holiday Camp began to fall into decline. During the first 5 seasons, Jeffrey Fairbrother (played brilliantly by the late, great Simon Cadell) was the camp's entertainment manager; a well meaning, yet slightly pensive ex-university professor breaking free of his upper class background and venturing into the "real" world to head his team of entertainment staff who were in stark contrast to his own laid-back personality. From season 6 onwards, Fairbrother was replaced by Clive Dempster (played by David Griffin when Cadell quit the show at the height of it's popularity), an ex-RAF war hero who, in many ways, was similar to Cadell's character in background, but more a scoundrel than a gentleman.However, the real stars of "Hi-De-Hi" throughout the nine seasons were Ted Bovis (played superbly by Paul Shane), a stereotypical working class, ale drinking, bawdy comic - someone who could never resist an opportunity to fiddle the campers; Gladys Pugh (played by Ruth Madoc who's currently experiencing a career comeback with appearances in the hit BBC Comedy, "Little Britain"), chief Yellowcoat (what the entertainment staff were called because of their bright yellow jackets) and sports organiser - but more importantly, the one person who saved Jeffrey Fairbrother and Clive Dempster from embarrassment by covering up their inexperience in running a holiday camp; Peggy Ollerenshaw (Su Pollard), the slightly dopey, yet lovable lowly chalet maid with a burning ambition to become a Yellowcoat, and Spike Dixon (Jeffrey Holland), Ted's innocent protégé learning more about 'show business' than he hoped for.As usual with a Croft & Perry production, the assembled cast of characters were a bunch of misfits played superbly by the actors involved. Mr. Partridge (played by the late Leslie Dwyer, who was in his 70's by the time he left the show), the alcoholic child-hating children's entertainer; Fred Quilly (Felix Bowness), a former champion jockey with a dubious past; Yvonne & Barry Stuart-Hargreaves (Dianne Holland & Barry Howard), the snobbish former ballroom dancing champions who were in the twilight of their careers; and Sylvia and Betty (Nikki Kelly and Rikki Howard), the two main girl Yellowcoats who were always looking for the type of fun Joe Maplin would never allow in one of his camps."Hi-De-Hi" typified the slapstick era of the late 50s with it's saucy and, to a certain degree, vulgar "tongue-in-cheek" humour (jokes about people sitting on toilets and anecdotes about 'women with big knockers' were the order of the day). But despite it's whiff of "Carry On" funniness, it was always so innocent and became something of recommended family viewing back in the 80's. Of course, the critics of the show remarked that the show had outstayed it's welcome by a good couple of years, but I disagree. While the early seasons focused mainly on bawdiness and slapstick humour, the latter series of "Hi-De-Hi" saw more thought put into the scripts and the main characters (especially Spike Dixon & Gladys Pugh) were able to grow with more sensitive story lines. That said, there were a few criticisms of the show. Clive Dempster was no Jeffrey Fairbrother, and the former didn't quite have the on-screen chemistry with Gladys as Jeffrey did (I personally think it would've been more believable if Gladys had married Jeff); five seasons dedicated to 1959 and four to 1960 caused more than just a few continuity errors (the disappearance of old faces and introductions of new characters weren't explained properly, especially with the Yellowcoats who came and went with much regularity; and the character of Gladys Pugh, who, in the pilot episode was made out to be a free-loving man-eater that was suddenly transformed into a naive virgin like character! Also to mention quite pedantically, most of the 1959 holiday season was covered in season one, so to stretch the rest of the year out in five further series was something bordering unbelievable. Still, the show wasn't meant to be meticulously looked upon, and the comedy more than outweighed it's flaws.All in all, "Hi-De-Hi" was probably one of the last comedies from the BBC's golden period, and even if it never managed to rival such British comedic mainstays as "Only Fools & Horses", "Porridge" or even "Last Of The Summer Wine", "Hi De Hi" will be best remembered as a comedy the whole family could enjoy. If you haven't already checked it out for yourself, I implore you to do so.