Martin is a committee man. He has numerous schemes and committees organised around the neighbourhood. He is so obsessive about every detail of everything he does he is driving his long suffering wife, Ann, slowly crazy. Then the new neighbour Paul arrives. He has a more worldly outlook than those who live under Martin's organisational spell. There is an immediate clash of personalities because Martin treats everything so seriously, but to Paul, life is for enjoying and not to be taken so seriously.
An undercurrent running throughout the series was the unresolved sexual tension and flirting between Paul and Ann. It is suggested that the marriage between the Bryces came about because Martin went to great lengths to help Ann through a difficult period in her earlier life and that she still feels indebted to him for this.
Central to the show is Martin's jealousy of Paul. Paul is shown to be significantly better than Martin at many things, notably cricket, where Paul joins the local team and promptly smashes all the records that Martin proudly holds. The two later play in a snooker tournament, where Martin is delighted to find that Paul is useless (the tournament coincides with Howard's anger at being seen as "a loser", causing him to defeat Martin in the final). A parallel is drawn to a story of Martin's childhood, where his own "gang" was taken over by a new boy, implying that he is scared that Paul's arrival will cause him to lose his friends and status to the new arrival.
Briers has said that it was his favourite sitcom role.
[-] shorpipo | 1 points | Oct 16 2016 16:37:00
Key @ http://pastebin.com/uJzASySm
Martin is a committee man. He has numerous schemes and committees organised around the neighbourhood. He is so obsessive about every detail of everything he does he is driving his long suffering wife, Ann, slowly crazy. Then the new neighbour Paul arrives. He has a more worldly outlook than those who live under Martin's organisational spell. There is an immediate clash of personalities because Martin treats everything so seriously, but to Paul, life is for enjoying and not to be taken so seriously.
An undercurrent running throughout the series was the unresolved sexual tension and flirting between Paul and Ann. It is suggested that the marriage between the Bryces came about because Martin went to great lengths to help Ann through a difficult period in her earlier life and that she still feels indebted to him for this.
Central to the show is Martin's jealousy of Paul. Paul is shown to be significantly better than Martin at many things, notably cricket, where Paul joins the local team and promptly smashes all the records that Martin proudly holds. The two later play in a snooker tournament, where Martin is delighted to find that Paul is useless (the tournament coincides with Howard's anger at being seen as "a loser", causing him to defeat Martin in the final). A parallel is drawn to a story of Martin's childhood, where his own "gang" was taken over by a new boy, implying that he is scared that Paul's arrival will cause him to lose his friends and status to the new arrival.
Briers has said that it was his favourite sitcom role.
permalink