As Time Goes By , the charming British sitcom of the 1990s, stars sparkling-eyed Judi Dench as Jean Pargetter and glum-faced Geoffrey Palme...
As Time Goes By, the charming British sitcom of the 1990s, stars sparkling-eyed Judi Dench as Jean Pargetter and glum-faced Geoffrey Palmer as Lionel Hardcastle. Long-time lovers, Lionel and Jean have had to lead separate lives. Lionel, who had served as second lieutenant in the Korean war and then run a coffee plantation in Kenya, is now back in England and trying to write a book. Jean, a widow, has worked her way up from being a nurse to running a secretarial agency in West London. Coincidence (what else?) brings them together now, 38 years later.
“Who’d be interested in a soppy story like that?” Jean asks Alistair (Philip Bretherton), Lionel’s ever-excitable jumping bean publisher.
“Only half the world,” says Alistair, and he is almost correct.
My well-thumbed copy of And Furthermore by Judi Dench tells of the gigantic success of the series that ran from 1991-2002 in England and its resounding success in Australia and America, which has an As Time Goes By internet fan club. Palmer’s recent death at 93 has brought on a flood of posthumous praise. Dench has said how lucky she was to have worked with him “because there is nobody with a drier sense of comedy”.
Geoffrey Palmer makes the perfect Lionel as described by his father...
