One Wink Plot
Avengers assemble; then a client asks Lovejoy to authenticate a Japanese firefly cage. By the end of the episode there has been a theft, a murder, a treasure hunt and a whisky-fuelled boat chase.
Review
"Who will start me for a hundred? Don't lose it for another fifty. Lovejoy!"
And we are off. Episode 1, Series 1. Watching this now — over 40 years later — and I would still be hooked. What a start.
The plan is to review an episode every week until we reach The Last Tango in Lavenham in 18 months or so.
Why (I don't hear anyone say)? Well, over the (many) years I've kept coming back to Lovejoy. And as my ability to focus on anything for longer than a few minutes starts to become a cause for a murmur of concern, what better way to bring some disciplined focus back than to actually watch (no phone) some Lovejoy episodes and then comment on them.
Dilapidated Volvo, Huey Lewis and the News, Power of Love floating over the Suffolk countryside. Lovejoy emerges from a smoking Volvo estate (a modern-day antique car) into a bucolic Constable-esque scene — a slightly dishevelled thatched cottage at the end of a farm lane, fields, hazy sunlight.
Cut to Eric in a market town square, listening to hair metal on a quaint old tape/walkman type thing. Plays cassette tapes — Eric looks like a C90 man to these experienced eyes. Turns out his butcher dad is prepared to pay this Lovejoy to train hapless drifting vegan Eric in the way of the divvy.
Gimbert is delivered up next — cigar in mouth and sly smile. We have our villain and Lovejoy's nemesis slash landlord. Not quite Joffrey Baratheon; more a Tom to Lovejoy's Jerry. It is implied later that Jerry has deflowered Tom's sister. Not sure Looney Tunes covered this.
"If home is where the heart is, then this is home to me," says Lovejoy to the camera in the antiques auction house. The fourth wall collapses as quickly as Spurs' midfield.
And next — ah, tits — now we have Dandy Jack. Three big hitters and then a distinctly softer fourth. The name suggests a crazy bon vivant. Instead, we get a posh bank manager type who appears half-heartedly in a lot of series 1 episodes and then, after the five-year hiatus between series 1 and 2, is dropped (although in the fantastic Bin Diving episode in S2E3 we do get a call to Dandy from Lovejoy for continuity's sake). Lovejoy's universe answer to Jar Jar Binks. Dandy will be back. Offering Jack.
Tinker up next. One of the big five. Only minutes in, and the main cast are mainly with us, and they seem fully formed already. Tinker explains what a barker is to Eric (lesson number one; the lessons dry up after this tidbit — I was going to measure, but nowt's worth measuring) and that he is one (an alcoholic who sniffs out antiques, which seems to be the general gist). Now we have settled on our holy triumvirate: Lovejoy, Tinker, and Eric. A divvy, a barker, and a City & Guilds student. Spot. On.
Lot 29. What turns out to be the Bamboo Japanese Firefly Cage. The other bidders are throwing their arms around like they're signalling for a plane to land. Not Lovejoy. Just the most subtle of left (always left) half-closed eye winks, and his bid is accepted. Unfortunately, the police arrive mid-bidding to arrest Lovejoy — and no one seems surprised. A loveable rogue.
The lady who was bidding against Lovejoy wins. The mysterious bamboo lady turns out not to be Lysette Anthony, despite my memory insisting otherwise. This is Kim Thomson. Lysette will arrive later to continue Lovejoy's long-running commitment to age-gap diplomacy and proving he isn't yet 'Deadwood'.
At the police station, Lovejoy explains that although he deals in stolen-looking antiques, he doesn't actually steal them. This defence works surprisingly well. The Suffolk constabulary would no doubt have accepted it with the same alacrity as Prince Andrew's lack of sweat and fondness for Pizza Hut.
Still only 10 minutes in, and the script, the acting, the scenery are as masterfully curated as a Fabergé egg.
Within minutes of meeting Eric, Lovejoy has commandeered both the man/apprentice and his sidecar. Recruitment standards in mid-80s Suffolk were refreshingly low. No LinkedIn profile needed. Our own Wallace and Gromit then splash Lady Jane, who is hanging around by the said forge.
The water obstacle appears to punch a hole in the space-time continuum. Moments later it is dark, Eric is pushing the bike, and they have stumbled across a burglary in a house Lovejoy knows should be empty.
Anyway (and a heads up going forward, most reviews won't be this detailed, more sort of emotion/general feeling — but the first episode is a pure delight and it is... the first episode!), we are now in Lovejoy's barn cum workshop, and this place looks great. Bric-a-brac all over the place. Tea cups, paper. It is what I think of when I think of Lovejoy.
Lovejoy will move out after series 1, although the cynic in me suspects the replacement barn was built by the same set designer with access to the same pile of junk.
The episode then descends into a treasure hunt involving a carved lump of coal, several dead people, a JCB dealer, and what I assume was a perfectly coherent chain of logic in somebody's head. It ends (I kid you not) with a boat chase and Tinker giving up his remaining whisky to douse a mop so Lovejoy can launch it aflame at the other boat. I've watched this three times recently and still understand it only slightly better than Ulysses.
But it doesn't matter. None of it should quite work, and yet it does. Upon watching this again after so many years, I was worried it wouldn't stand up. It does. If home is where the heart is, then a settee and an episode of Lovejoy is home to me.