One Foot in the Grave (TV Series) The Man in the Long Black Coat (1991) User Reviews

An incredible mix of hilarity and tragedy.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 10/10 · 9 August 2021]

What happened, happened.....

Victor still hasn't forgiven Patrick for machine gunning 100 of his garden gnomes.

Interesting that no series followed on from 1990's glorious Christmas episode, instead fans had to wait an entire year for this one. This festive episode comes just before the magical third series.

A glorious mix of funny and sad, the humour is side splitting, we have the fairy light covered manure, the hemorrhoid cream, Eric Idle and the tea.

It is an out and out classic, it is hilarious, but as with any great comedy, the humour and laughs are balanced with a darker side, and of course the ending of this one is tragic, it's a real heart breaking scene, credit to all concerned, not many shows can take you from such highs to such lows. Even after multiple views the scene at The Hospital sends a cold shiver down my spine.

Outstanding, absolutely outstanding, 10/10.

Fantastic acting, sometimes bad writing

[sinthemix-49649 · 5/10 · 3 April 2022]

I absolutely love this show and watch it a lot on dvd, and also BBC iPlayer has every episode too.

Every episode has something that makes me howl laughing.

There are as with most things that you watch so many times though, glaring plot holes that you miss on first viewing.

This episode in that regard is no exception. One bit in particular that stands out is when Margaret realises that Victor has been using ginseng capsules belonging to Patrick from nextdoor as suppositories for his piles. Instead of just throwing them away and saying nothing about it, she goes out of her way to take the sachet back to nextdoor and tells him why they were in her house by accident and that Victor had been shoving them up his bottom. It's a pointless cheap laugh that would have been funny if it had just been left with her discovering them in the bathroom cabinet.

Another piece of pointless humour is him being at the doctors and the receptionist bellowing out he's there for a prescription for pile cream and someone then ringing the surgery to find out if he's there and her saying it's for you, someone asking when you're going to shift a pile of manure? Who was it and how would they know he was even there?

I do adore this show though 😍