GOODNIGHT SWEETHEART

While skimming through Virgin Media's TV on Demand the other day, I came across the series GOODNIGHT SWEETHEART.

Do you remember it?!
This slightly neglected sit-com starred Nicholas Lyndhurst and Dervla Kirwan and features a time-travelling TV repair man!

Named after the famous Al Bowlly song, the idea of the programme was that the main character Gary Sparrow, played by Lyndhurst, could literally walk back in time.
In the first episode, while looking for a building, he walks down an alleyway and unwittingly goes through a time portal to the year 1940.

Although it's a light-hearted comedy, at times it's a rather poignant programme. Seeing how Gary adapts to wartime London, which seems an alien world at first, is very interesting. Also, the characters from the 40s treat him with great suspicion, presuming he's a spy!
The attention to detail is expectional and you get a real sense of the era.

As Gary starts to grow fonder of the barmaid Phoebe at The Royal Oak pub, he starts to lead a double life.
This is where the writers found many clever tools to play with the time-travel theme. Of course there was heavy rationing at the time, so Gary would bring along chocolate, tea and coffee from his modern life back to 1940 to impress Phoebe. 
He would research the period day by day in books and so go back to tell people what was going to happen. At one time warning of a particularly heavy air raid about to happen that night. This gave him the cover story that he was working in the intelligence services and access to the American Embassy.
The funniest one however, was how he would sing and play modern and classic pop songs, and say he'd written them. Often quoting lines from them in conversation!

The programme first aired in 1993, so ironically this now seems a far off era as well! The pre-internet days would seem an alien world to younger people now. The clothes, cars and even the wallpaper give you a glimpse back to the tastes of 20 years ago.

I remember later in the series, Gary opens up a shop in his 1990s world selling wartime items that he would bring back from his time travels! What a brilliant idea, if only I could do that!!

If you fancy doing a spot of time-travelling yourself, have a look at my DAZZLING DECADES series. Especially my FIGHTING FORTIES collage dedicated to the 1940s, which has loads of original 40s items.

They are on my website.... HERE

Here is the FIGHTING FORTIES, created using my own 40s items, apart from the Spitfire of course!!