CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV: Proof oldies can cut it on a TV ... trends now
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Fifty years ago, they were the butt of the joke, more often than not. But we're finally learning to appreciate the strong women of vintage sitcoms.
Watch an episode of Fawlty Towers now and it's the magnificent Prunella Scales who dominates many scenes. And far from being a downtrodden housewife in Happy Ever After, June Whitfield is the mainstay of that show, not her onscreen hubby Terry Scott.
Greatest of them all was Penelope Keith as The Good Life's arch snob, Margo Leadbetter, a woman with a voice so strident she could make flowerbeds stand to attention.
Woodwork teacher Neil named her as his inspiration for a 1970s-style dress with a pageboy collar, as The Great British Sewing Bee returned. 'I didn't appreciate it at the time,' he admitted, 'but Margo was a fashion icon.'
Esme Young and Patrick Grant are back as Sewing Bee's judges, but this is the first full season for presenter Kiell Smith-Bynoe
This is the Sewing Bee's tenth series and it features the oldest contestant yet, 84-year-old retired scientist Don
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CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews this weekend's TV: Violent, drunken, disloyal . . . this cop is so nasty he's all but unwatchable
The dress was orange with a paisley pattern that used to be popular, I seem to remember, on crockery. Margo's husband might have had reservations about it but —'Jerry! Be quiet!' — he wouldn't have dared to let on.
