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One Foot in the Grave
Early retirement! She had said it with a nervous chuckle. Or was it a witch’s cackle?
After twenty-six years as a security officer with Watson-Mycroft, Victor Meldrew was on the last leg of life, with nothing to do but confront the insanities and frustrations of everyday existence.
To his dying day he would not understand why he’d found a python with rigor mortis in his flight bag on the plane to Athens. It was one of those events over which he had no like the Citroen 2CV in his rubbish skip; the dead tomcat in his freezer, and the charred remains of an elderly neighbour that turned up one morning on his kitchen table.
And yet, bizarre as they were, such problems paled into insignificance beside his colourful experiences with two hundred garden gnomes, a naked woman in the local community centre, a toe-curling rectal examination at Luton Airport, and a remarkable orgy of sex and drugs involving two dozen old age pensioners and a lovesick gorilla on Christmas Eve.
These encounters – and much more mayhem besides – add up to a dossier of disasters that are no more or less than an average year for a man with One Foot in the Grave.
After twenty-six years as a security officer with Watson-Mycroft, Victor Meldrew was on the last leg of life, with nothing to do but confront the insanities and frustrations of everyday existence.
To his dying day he would not understand why he’d found a python with rigor mortis in his flight bag on the plane to Athens. It was one of those events over which he had no like the Citroen 2CV in his rubbish skip; the dead tomcat in his freezer, and the charred remains of an elderly neighbour that turned up one morning on his kitchen table.
And yet, bizarre as they were, such problems paled into insignificance beside his colourful experiences with two hundred garden gnomes, a naked woman in the local community centre, a toe-curling rectal examination at Luton Airport, and a remarkable orgy of sex and drugs involving two dozen old age pensioners and a lovesick gorilla on Christmas Eve.
These encounters – and much more mayhem besides – add up to a dossier of disasters that are no more or less than an average year for a man with One Foot in the Grave.
262 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 18, 2021
About the author
David Renwick
19 books5 followersDavid Peter Renwick is an English television writer, best known for creation of the sitcom One Foot in the Grave and the mystery series Jonathan Creek.
On beginning his comedy career, he initially worked in a team with writing partner Andrew Marshall, the pair of them providing material to popular sketch shows such as The Two Ronnies and Not the Nine O'Clock News during the late 1970s and early 80s. One of the most celebrated sketches he wrote for the former was a parody of the BBC quiz programme Mastermind, where a "Charlie Smithers" chose to answer questions on the specialist subject "Answering the question before last", adapted from his "Answering one question behind all the time" sketch from their The Burkiss Way for BBC Radio 4. Their short-lived LWT series for ITV, End of Part One, was an attempt to transfer Burkiss-style humour to television. Later in the 1980s they also wrote for the sketch show Alexei Sayle's Stuff and Spike Milligan's There's a Lot of It About.
In 1982 they penned the comedy drama serial Whoops Apocalypse for LWT, based on the insanity of international politics in the age of nuclear weapons, and four years later they adapted the screenplay (changing most of the characters and situations completely) into a feature film version. In 1983 they wrote The Steam Video Company for Thames Television, a short comedy series based on very silly parodies of famous novels. This was followed in 1986 by Hot Metal for LWT, a six-part satire of the tabloid newspaper industry starring Robert Hardy, Geoffrey Palmer and John Gordon Sinclair. The show was a critical success and returned for a further six episodes in 1988 with a revised cast of Robert Hardy, Richard Wilson and Caroline Milmoe.
Renwick began writing solo in 1990 when he created the sitcom One Foot in the Grave, starring Richard Wilson, which was highly successful and went on to be a popular hit for the following decade. It also ran for four seasons as an American re-make entitled Cosby, starring Bill Cosby, although this is generally regarded as a poor adaptation of the original.
In 1997, Renwick devised the comedy-drama Jonathan Creek, based around the crime-solving abilities of the eponymous designer of magic tricks, played by comedian Alan Davies. As of 2009, twenty-seven episodes have been produced across four short-run series and four specials. The slow rate of production is partly due to Renwick's writing of the episodes, which he describes as being a painstaking process in which the intricacies of the plots take several months to work out.
He has also written for 'straight' television drama, contributing episodes to ITV's famous adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries, starring David Suchet. Renwick's fondness for rationalist murder mysteries with supernatural overtones, later developed fully in Jonathan Creek is evident in elements he added to the Poirot adaptations. In 1992, Renwick and co-writer Michael Baker received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the Poirot episode "The Lost Mine", which aired in the U.S. as part of the PBS anthology series Mystery!.
Most recently, another comedy-drama Renwick has penned, entitled Love Soup, starring Tamsin Greig and Michael Landes, premiered on BBC One on 27 September 2005. Renwick, and his ex writing partner Marshall, had cameo roles in an episode of the series as members of a television sitcom scriptwriting team.
He was awarded the Writers Guild Ronnie Barker Award at the British Comedy Awards 2008.
On beginning his comedy career, he initially worked in a team with writing partner Andrew Marshall, the pair of them providing material to popular sketch shows such as The Two Ronnies and Not the Nine O'Clock News during the late 1970s and early 80s. One of the most celebrated sketches he wrote for the former was a parody of the BBC quiz programme Mastermind, where a "Charlie Smithers" chose to answer questions on the specialist subject "Answering the question before last", adapted from his "Answering one question behind all the time" sketch from their The Burkiss Way for BBC Radio 4. Their short-lived LWT series for ITV, End of Part One, was an attempt to transfer Burkiss-style humour to television. Later in the 1980s they also wrote for the sketch show Alexei Sayle's Stuff and Spike Milligan's There's a Lot of It About.
In 1982 they penned the comedy drama serial Whoops Apocalypse for LWT, based on the insanity of international politics in the age of nuclear weapons, and four years later they adapted the screenplay (changing most of the characters and situations completely) into a feature film version. In 1983 they wrote The Steam Video Company for Thames Television, a short comedy series based on very silly parodies of famous novels. This was followed in 1986 by Hot Metal for LWT, a six-part satire of the tabloid newspaper industry starring Robert Hardy, Geoffrey Palmer and John Gordon Sinclair. The show was a critical success and returned for a further six episodes in 1988 with a revised cast of Robert Hardy, Richard Wilson and Caroline Milmoe.
Renwick began writing solo in 1990 when he created the sitcom One Foot in the Grave, starring Richard Wilson, which was highly successful and went on to be a popular hit for the following decade. It also ran for four seasons as an American re-make entitled Cosby, starring Bill Cosby, although this is generally regarded as a poor adaptation of the original.
In 1997, Renwick devised the comedy-drama Jonathan Creek, based around the crime-solving abilities of the eponymous designer of magic tricks, played by comedian Alan Davies. As of 2009, twenty-seven episodes have been produced across four short-run series and four specials. The slow rate of production is partly due to Renwick's writing of the episodes, which he describes as being a painstaking process in which the intricacies of the plots take several months to work out.
He has also written for 'straight' television drama, contributing episodes to ITV's famous adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot mysteries, starring David Suchet. Renwick's fondness for rationalist murder mysteries with supernatural overtones, later developed fully in Jonathan Creek is evident in elements he added to the Poirot adaptations. In 1992, Renwick and co-writer Michael Baker received an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for the Poirot episode "The Lost Mine", which aired in the U.S. as part of the PBS anthology series Mystery!.
Most recently, another comedy-drama Renwick has penned, entitled Love Soup, starring Tamsin Greig and Michael Landes, premiered on BBC One on 27 September 2005. Renwick, and his ex writing partner Marshall, had cameo roles in an episode of the series as members of a television sitcom scriptwriting team.
He was awarded the Writers Guild Ronnie Barker Award at the British Comedy Awards 2008.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 4, 2022
Hmm. I did smile a few times but this book is not as funny as the author thinks it is, not as funny as the TV show it's adapted from.
The style of writing actually limits the effectiveness of the humour. Whole lines are taken verbatim from the TV show BUT instead of breaking them up, and interspersing them with more descriptive text and character reaction etc, the author just transfers the lines of dialogue in a block. And it's just lazy really. Yes, it's kind of funny and mildly amusing because we can picture and remember how the lines were originally delivered on TV but this was an opportunity to build on the TV series and sadly, that opportunity has been wasted.
With a bit more focus, this could have leapt to 4 stars but the book is at times amateurish in it's approach, and therefore ends up being only a 2 star effort.
The style of writing actually limits the effectiveness of the humour. Whole lines are taken verbatim from the TV show BUT instead of breaking them up, and interspersing them with more descriptive text and character reaction etc, the author just transfers the lines of dialogue in a block. And it's just lazy really. Yes, it's kind of funny and mildly amusing because we can picture and remember how the lines were originally delivered on TV but this was an opportunity to build on the TV series and sadly, that opportunity has been wasted.
With a bit more focus, this could have leapt to 4 stars but the book is at times amateurish in it's approach, and therefore ends up being only a 2 star effort.
October 31, 2021
Very funny 😄
September 2, 2024
Should have just remained as a TV series. I counted 4 LOL moments in total. The rest of the book would achieve the odd smile every now and then.
September 29, 2026
Laugh out loud comedy gold. Victor Meldrew hero for the ages!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews