Review of Hold the Sunset

As an oldie I suppose I should be rising above resentment at "Hold the sunset" being denigrated as aimed at the pensioner market by a reviewer contemptuously dismissing a significant proportion of the country's population as having no cultural awareness or value,but,hey,it happens everyday on TV and wireless programmes aimed at mindless twenty - somethings with the attention span of a spaniel puppy. So I shall. Pensioners Cleese and Steadman manage to find their way round the set without falling over an achievement by itself,evidently. They are joined briefly by pensioner Egan before surrendering centre stage to Jason Watkins who isn't quite so aged - but then he isn't quite so funny either. In fact he isn't funny at all. The script calls for Mr Cleese to be good humoured,even smile from time to time. For a man whose default character setting is smug Oxbridge snob he does a good job. It is left to Miss Steadman to charm her way through the piece and make it worth watching. She and Mr Cleese are the Love Interest;a couple almost star - crossed in that their wish to be together is thwarted by the arrival of her son,a 50 year old pre - adolescent who's prime regret is not cementing a relationship he had when he was seven. He has left the marital home and gone back to mum. Bugger what she thinks or what plans she may have had. There is a word for him that is usually preceded by "Selfish". I am reasonably sure Cleese and Steadman will prevail in the end,and I will personally be very happy to see Jason Watkins sleeping rough on the streets of whatever posh borough he lives in - perhaps it's Windsor who's plans for ethnically cleansing their homeless population I would be willing - in his case - to heartily endorse.