As Time Goes By--Sydney Lotterby (Dir.)

In difficult times, we often crave comfort, the familiar, the hopeful.  I have withstood several challenges in the past by losing myself in the Winter Olympics broadcasts.  Literature, music, and art also offer refuge against the ravages of time and fate.  Lately, I have returned to an old favorite television series to lose myself for a while in the face of Covid-19, raging fires, and a corrupt and dangerous administration.  As Time Goes By, a British television comedy, offers the antics of a cobbled-together family facing age and a changing world and speaks to growing old gracefully without ridiculing anyone or pursuing cheap laughs.  It is real and genuine and heartfelt, as well as timeless.

Unique in comparison to American television, As Time Goes By was written by Bob Larbey and directed by Sydney Lotterby.  That is why the story holds together so consistently—one director and one writer for ten seasons, 67 episodes airing originally from 1992-2005.  The excellent cast also kept the series on an even keel.  Dame Judi Dench, always an inspiration, takes the lead as Jean, a widow who meets again with her long lost love, Lionel, played by Geoffrey Palmer.  He was her first lover on the eve of the Korean War.  They had a very brief romance, and then he went off to fight while she became a nurse.  They promised to write, but through a quirk of fate, the initial correspondence was lost, leading them to believe it was just a fling.  But each of their ghosts haunted the other for decades after the war.

As the first episode opens, we see Lionel trying to rework a manuscript covering his time as a coffee grower in Kenya.  He hires a secretary from Jean’s secretarial agency to help him with the typing, and because of Jean’s adult daughter, he sees Jean again.  They have a confrontation only to discover the lost letter and misunderstanding.  Thirty-eight years later, the two find themselves unsure about what to do.  What they discover is that their love story was one for the ages, that they never left each other’s thoughts.  However, can the romance be rekindled?

Larbey takes his time with the story.  They begin to get the relationship back on track only at the end of season one.  They do not move in together until season three and eventually marry in season four.  However, along the way, the audience knows this relationship will survive and flourish.  History has been made right again with their nuptials.

The cast is rounded out with Jean’s daughter, Judith, played by the expressive Moira Brooker, Philip Bretherton as Lionel’s publisher, Alistair Deacon, and Jean’s pseudo-daughter and secretarial agency office manager, Sandy, who moves in with Jean, Lionel, and Judith, creating a new family.  The late, great Frank Middlemass and Joan Sims play Lionel’s father and stepmother.  Moyra Fraser and Paul Chapman provide comic relief as Jean’s deceased husband’s sister and brother-in-law.

Why is the show comforting?  It depicts a quiet middle age where one can reflect on wisdom while still making adjustments to time and a changing world.  I never tire of the way the characters live and navigate their lives.  There is conflict, but it is clear middle-to-old age is not to be feared.  Dench can be funny with just her face and gestures, often scheming to force Lionel to find out a bit of information from Judith or another character.  She is not subtle, which adds to the humor because the audience can read the scene on Dench’s face.  She is an excellent physical comedian.

The conflicts come with Lionel’s worry that he lacks a pension.  He is afraid his book, My Life In Kenya, is dull and will not sell.  Alistair, ever the optimist, believes with a sexy book jacket everything will be fine.  But Lionel must step out of his comfort zone to shoot the cover with a prop rifle and a half-naked woman clinging to his leg in a non-descript jungle set.  Jean bursts into laughter while Lionel is merely embarrassed.  The book is published, leading to a second windfall when Lionel is hired to write a miniseries about his and Jean’s lost romance.  However, Lionel has free time around these projects, so he throws himself into housework to earn his keep.  He has particular difficulty with ironing bras in this house filled with women.

Jean is not immune to the changes either.  She flirts with retiring and allowing Sandy and Judith to take over the business she built from scratch after her first husband died.  She is afraid to let go because the agency saved her life when she was pierced with grief.  Going to work each day helped her get through a difficult time, and now she is reluctant to abandon her life raft.  Again, Larbey and director Lotterby take their time with the story, allowing the arcs to play out over the seasons.

The comfort comes from the realization that life does go on, even as the years pass.  In this moment in time, we observe the changes in ourselves and the way we live.  What endures is family, friendship, gentle humor, and love.  Lionel and Jean lost each other for 38 years, but love cannot be denied.  They lived in the world, separately, during that time, but life has a way of circling back, and things fated to be will be, even in the face of time and tide.  As Time Goes By is a gentle reminder of all the richness life offers even in difficult circumstances.  It reminds us of what is important—the warmth of a family’s embrace, a good custard tart (Lionel’s favorite), and love, and to quote a formerly blind poet-evangelist named Paul, the greatest of these is love.