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When it comes to the 1970s school of overacting in situation comedy, there can only be one winner. On the Buses. Here is a show that on the surface is terrible, yet at the same time it is strangely compelling.
On the Buses ran between 1969 and 1973, during which time seventy-nine episodes were churned out along with three movies, two stage plays, a board game, a strip in Look In, a sequel (Don't Drink the Water - a vehicle for Stephen Lewis) and even an American remake. In 1990 the cast appeared in a bizarre interview with Terry Wogan to discuss a purely speculative new series called Back On the Buses, which only Reg Varney seemed to want to get involved with. The show was amateurish and farcical yet despite being unanimously shit-canned by critics it was inexplicably popular. On the Buses was the Mrs Brown's Boys of its day.
Of course, On the Buses was far from highbrow. It didn't seem to weight too heavily on the writers Ronald Wolfe and Ronald Chesney to write a second draft, and LWT's comedy department appeared to cock a snook at the hackneyed convention of rehearsal. However, the more I watched (this was one of my lockdown binges), the more an idea formulated in my head.
Stan Butler is trapped in a cramped environment, unable to escape his needy mother and the endless rowing between his sister and brother-in-law (a situation explored with pathos in Steptoe and Son). The front room is rarely used, a common working-class behaviour, so the day-to-day interaction takes place in the combined kitchen and living area that if 'smellyvision' had ever been invented would pump the aroma of fried food and cigarettes out of your television. Strip away the comedy (not a massive undertaking) and what you're left with is a traditional kitchen sink drama. Most of the conversations/arguments are about money and the lack of it, and Stan only really cares about pissing off his boss by doing the bare minimum at work before going out to pull a 'bird'.
Stan Butler therefore is Arthur Seaton if Saturday Night and Sunday Morning was a shit sitcom. By isolating certain scenes, removing the laughter (fuck knows what the audience were laughing at most of the time), turning it to black and white, I was able to re-imagine On the Buses. I made minimal use of Bob Grant's character of Jack as he was far too cartoonish as was Olive, got rid of all the sexism and racism popular with 70s comedy (although on the racism front, OTB was by no way the worst offender) and used scenes where the actors weren't shouting their lines as if in a pantomime rehearsal. By focussing on the dialogue relating to being able to make HP payments, the need to do overtime and who manages to put the housekeeping on the table on Friday, I developed a look at working class life during the seventies. Assuming it is the seventies, the series seems to exist in a long-gone universe of mangles, coal fires and tallymen.
Taking inspiration from the aforementioned Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, I isolated some key scenes and attempted to make the opening and closing titles resemble the movie version. Then I was left with how to put these scenes into some kind of order to create a kind of story arc. For this I used the William S Burroughs cutting method, as used by another one of my creative heroes, David Bowie.
This was a whimsical idea that I only took a few days on to create what is known as a collage film. I have not made room on my awards shelf in anticipation, but I hope if you watch it, you will enjoy it. Please remember to share this.
On the Buses: A Kitchen Sink Drama is available to watch for free here
