1. “Hello, Hello!” – BBC (1982-1992)
The series takes place at the Café René in the small town of Nouvion during World War II in German-occupied France. The café becomes a favorite meeting place for Germans stationed in the town and an important operational hub for activists in the French resistance movement. The café’s owner, René Artois (Gordon Kaye), who wants a quiet life, must carry out the orders of the resistance movement and provide various services to the corrupt German military authorities, or face death from both sides.
For a long time, René hides two British pilots behind his back, whom he tries to send back to England with the resistance movement. However, none of the attempts are successful. The café also becomes a place to hide cultural objects stolen by German officers, which supposedly would provide them with a peaceful life after the war. What causes him the most trouble is the particularly valuable painting “The Fallen Madonna with Large Breasts” by van Klomp. The Gestapo also wants to get hold of this painting and sends a special officer, Otto Flick (Richard Gibson and David Janson).
Most of the characters are treated in a stereotypical and grotesque manner, depending on their nationality. The Frenchman is presented as the best lover – a role played by the obese and bald René, who unintentionally makes the waitresses of the café fall in love with him. He has to hide his affairs with Yvette (Vicki Michelle) and Maria (Francesca Gonshaw), and later with Mimi (Sue Hodge), from his jealous wife Edith (Carmen Blanche Silvera). On the other hand, he himself has to reject the advances of a German officer, Gruber (Guy Siner). Another characteristic character is the soldier Helga Geerhart (Kim Hartman), who is a typical Aryan beauty and wears underwear with swastikas.
2. “Black Adder” – BBC (1983-1999)
The series tells the story of the Blackadder family against the backdrop of the history of the British Empire. The script for the first series was created by Richard Curtis and Rowan Atkinson. The subsequent series were written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton. John Lloyd was responsible for producing the series. The main characters were played by Rowan Atkinson (as the title character, Edmund Blackadder) and Tony Robinson (as Baldrick, Blackadder’s servant or subordinate). The series’ music was written by Howard Goodall.
The first fifteen-minute special episode – “Blackadder: The Cavalier Years” – appeared in 1988 as part of Comic Relief Night. The next forty-five-minute “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” was created as a Christmas special in 1988. The final thirty-minute episode of “Blackadder: Back & Forth” was created in 1999 and was originally shown at the Millennium Dome cinema (2000), and later broadcast on Sky and BBC television. A pilot episode of the series was created in 1982, but it was never broadcast on television.
3. “Have you called, my lord?” – BBC (1988-1993)
The series takes place in the second half of the 1920s in the London residence of Lord Meldrum (Donald Hewlett), a wealthy aristocrat with conservative views, who runs large businesses and sits in the House of Lords. In addition to the widowed lord, the mansion is inhabited by his brother Teddy (Michael Knowles), his mother-in-law Lady Lavender (Mavis Pugh) and two daughters – Poppy (Susie Brann), a snobbish and socially inclined woman, and Cissy (Catherine Rabett), a liberated lesbian. There are also several servants living in the house, including the butler Alf (Paul Shane), the butler James (Jeffrey Holland), the maid Ivy (Su Pollard) and the cook Mrs Lipton (Brenda Cowling).
Like many of David Croft’s signature series, “The Lord Called, My Lord?” attempts, in a mocking but not without sentimentality, to recreate the atmosphere of places and times that no longer exist. In this case, it is interwar England, where the emancipation of the lower classes collides with the economic dominance of the aristocracy, and increasingly free moral norms still have to contend with Victorian puritanism and hypocrisy.
The series’ plot was inspired by stories about Jimmy Perry’s grandfather, a pre-war butler, that the writer heard as a child.
4. “The cake is served” – BBC (1999)
The series takes place in 1782 at the Palace of Versailles, at the court of King Louis XVI of France and his wife, Queen Marie Antoinette. The plot focuses on the lives of wealthy aristocratic women who stay at the palace as ladies-in-waiting, in particular the rivalry between two of them: the Countess de Vache and Madame de Vache. Their servants also play an important role in their intrigues, without whom the French elite of the time could not imagine their lives and were unable to carry out even the simplest activities.
The series was created and written by Peter Learmouth, and the lead roles were played by the famous female comedy duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
5. “1670” – Netflix (2023-)
Two noblemen live in the village of Adamczeja: Jan Paweł (played by Bartłomiej Topa), who owns the “smaller half” of the estate, and his hated neighbor Andrzej, who owns the “larger half”. They differ in everything – Andrzej is reasonable, balanced, progressive, wants to pay higher taxes for the good of the Polish Republic, and John Paul II is an ordinary moneymaker, a brawler, a complete Sarmatian. And it is John Paul II who is the guide of the village of Adamczej and the life of the nobility at a time when, unfortunately for him, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was in decline.
Jan Paweł lives with his family – his God-fearing and strict wife Zofia (played by Katarzyna Herman), his son Stanisław (played by Michał Balicki, known for his appearance in “Emigracja XD”), his daughter Aniela (Martyna Byczkowska’s second successful role in the TV series after “Absolute Debutants”) and son Jakub (Michał Sikorski). Interwoven footage from the lives of each adult member of the family gives us an insight into their everyday life and routine.
The creators decided to make a bold and interesting attempt to modernize not only the language, but also the situations and events, so that we can see ourselves in them as in problems that we know from experience, from the media or from the stories of our friends. That is why John Paul II is a representative of old age for his children, but his ambition is to live to be “fifty”, so he is far from being officially old. He must always be right, he effectively embarrasses the whole group with embarrassing stories that he finds funny and makes absurd decisions without considering their consequences.
