"One Foot in the Grave" One Foot in the Algarve (1993)

User Rating:

8.4/10   

Director:

Susan Belbin

Writer:

David Renwick (writer)

TV Series:

"One Foot in the Grave" (1990)

Original Air Date:

26 December 1993 (Season 4, Episode 7)

Genre:

Comedy

Plot:

Plot Keywords:

Dilapidated House | Boxer | Villa | Portugal | Faked Death

Cast

Richard Wilson	...	Victor Meldrew
Annette Crosbie	...	Margaret Meldrew
Doreen Mantle	...	Jean Warboys
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Peter Cook	...	Martin Trout
Maria d'Aires	...	Mortuary Assistant
João D'Ávila	...	Mortuary Attendant
Edward de Souza	...	Alfonso
Louise Duprey	...	Shirley
Benjamim Falcão	...	Old Man
Craig Ferguson	...	Glaswegian
Paulo Filipe
Lídia Franco	...	Maria (as Lidia Franco)
José Gomes	...	Farmworker
João Lagarto
Louis Mahoney	...	Humphrey
André Maia	...	Fisherman
Anna Nicholas	...	Isabella
Jorge Parente	...	Farmworker
Augusto Portela	...	Policeman
Margarida Rodrigues	...	Waitress
Jorge Sequerra	...	Coastguard
Joan Sims	...	Lady on Plane
Eduardo Viana	...	Policeman
Eamonn Walker	...	Hugo
Luís Zagalo	...	Photo Shop Owner

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

One Hour and a Half of Victor Meldrew, I Don't Believe it

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

This feature length episode of One Foot in the Grave (3 times the normal episode) was quite excellent.

The episode starts in the life of Martin Trout. He is a strange middle aged man who has a film of pornography where he plans to make thousand of pounds. He is on a phone at an airport. Victor, Margaret and Mrs Warboys are at the airport, they are going to the Algarve where they are meeting Alfonso, Mrs Warboy's Portugeese pen-pal who's wife Marie tragically fell off a cliff and died. Martin Trout's film of pornography accidentally falls into Margaret's handbag. Martin notices this but it is too late, he will make his way to the Algarve later on in the week. Victor, Margaret and Mrs Warboys arrive in the Algarve. It is late at night and Victor is too tired to drive to the villa so they go in this strange building believing it to be some sort of hotel. Mrs Warboys is so tired he asks a Portugeese man if she can sleep in a room upstairs (he has a Portugeese phrase book), but it turns out to mean something sexually related and the man walks Mrs Warboys upstairs, then we hear Mrs Warboys scream so they run out of the place and speed off in the car, only to be stopped for speeding. They are taken to there villa, but Victor, Margaret and Jean think they have been thrown in prison. They only realise after two days it is there villa and have been sat in the one room. In the villa opposite them is a young black man called Hugo. He is staying with his father and his wife Shirley. Hugo is a professional boxer, but his Father is angry because he isn't aggressive, he doesn't let people upset him (cue Victor) and as a whole is very caring. Finally Jean meets Alfonso and get on very well and marriage looks very likely. Martin Trout makes it to the Algarve and gets into the villa to find the film, he doesn't succeed and breaks his legs doing so. At night, Victor goes and picks Mrs Warboys up from Alfonso's. He has to get out of the car and Mrs Warboys is asleep. Some passers by think she has had a heart attack and take her to the near by hospital, but her shoes fall off at the edge of the cliff. Victor comes back, thinks of Alfonso's wife Marie and panics, thinking she has fell in. Hugo is in the area and he jumps off the cliff to find her, only to accidentally find himself locked in a fishing boat. Victor and Margaret are called to the Mortery and are not given a full body, just a foot. Victor and Margaret then find Jean and Hugo returns home, a little more angry now. Victor goes round to Hugo to apologise. Hugo is in the bath and Victor's aftershave makes a donkey follow him and the donkey attacks Hugo in the bath. Hugo gets very angry now and punches Victor. Victor has made a very calm man hit him. At Alfonso's Jean works out the clues from Marie's death and she works out that Marie faked her own death to leave Alfonso (simular to Reginald Perrin). It turns out she is right and it leaves Alfonso very upset. They finally leave the Algarve and Martin Trout realises that Margaret never did have the film, it was in a jacket he threw away.

There was some fabulous casting in this episode. Martin Trout was played by the great Peter Cook. Eamonn Walker played Hugo, he played Winstone in the classic Johnny Speight series In Sickness and in Health. Joan Sims was also on the aeroplane. This episode showed no matter how silly Mrs Warboys was made to look in the series, she was actually quite intelligent. The whole of this episode is available on video and DVD, but also free to watch on Youtube (the whole episode). Make sure you type in One Foot in the Algrave, not One Foot in the Algarve. Though I strongly recommend you buy the DVD with it on, it is on the series 4 DVD, a great series. This was a fantastic special.

Best Bit: Victor's face when in the mortuary he is presented with the foot Second Best Bit: HUGO'S FATHER: You're not aggressive enough. You are in the ring and you stop in the fifth round to inquire about your opponents Mother's Authritus.