Richard Beckinsale - The Lovers

FILM REVIEW July 1973, Vol. 23, No. 7

the Lovers!
You'd expect a film called The Lovers! to be unashamedly romantic, throbbing with passion, bursting with heroism, seething with sensuality . . . until you learned that its leading players are not another Adam and Eve, Romeo and Juliet or Marguerite and Armand but Geoffrey and Beryl. The vacillating couple the whole country fell for on TV. And then you realise that the title of the film is somewhat cynical - after all, it's got an exclamation mark !

What's come between Geoffrey (Richard Beckinsale) and
Beryl (Paula Wilcox) besides the goal post? Could it be
Geoffrey's roving eye for other girls. Four of which we
picture above and below? One of them is BB on his
wardrobe door!

    Geoffrey (played by Richard Beckinsale) is a 20-year-old bank clerk who lives with his parents in Manchester. He's all in favour of the Permissive Society, and wakes up every morning hoping that today at last he'll get the chance of becomming a member.
    Beryl (Paula Wilcox) is a 19-year-old secretary who lives with her mother whose full-time occupation is worrying why Beryl isn't married. Beryl too is a little concerned, but she realises that before you can marry you've got to find someone to ask you.
    When Geoffrey and Beryl first meet, there's no skipping of heartbeats, no trembling of the knees, no off-screen violins. In fact, they feel nothing for each other. But their two friends Neville and Sandra (played by Anthony Naylor and Susan Littler) hit it off immediately - inspired by which, Geoffrey and Beryl continue seeing each other to see what (if anything) transpires. Beryl wants a platonic friendship, then marriage, and Geoffrey wants neither. So it's a stalemate - no mating. The efforts of friends to get them together only has the reverse effect.
    Geoffrey sets out to conquer the rest of the town's female population. His first would-be conquest promises him the most exciting night since Manchester United won the Cup, but at two o'clock in the morning her parents have other ideas. His next attempt is with a Woman's Lib campaigner he meets at Neville and Sandra's engagement party. Present to witness this latest failure is Beryl. Try as they might, Geoffrey and Beryl don't seem able to get away from each other. Perhaps after all (in the words of the Cole Porter song) they're fated to be mated, but they're still not ready to entertain such a preposterous idea.
    No one who has seen Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox together in the two TV series of The Lovers will deny that they are just right for the parts. Richard had his first taste of acting when he was nine, playing Dopey in a school version of Snow White. After various appearances in rep, his forst TV role was in Coronation Street as a policeman arresting Ena Sharples. Then came the first series of The Lovers. Before the second series Richard took part in two films and a number of TV plays, and at Leeds Playhouse he appeared as one of the grestest lovers of all time, Romeo. he is 24 and unmarried.
    Paula Wilcox, on the other hand, is 22 and married - to a stage director. She recalls that The Lovers TV series nearly didn't happen: 'Granada told me I'd deffinitely got the part - if they decided to go ahead. So I went away and forgot the matter. The series was posyponed, and the writer was asked to do The Dustbinmen in the meantime. However, when The Lovers finally got on the TV screens it was an immediate success for everyone concerned winning the Writers Gild Award for best TV comedy script of 1971. Since the second series Paula has appeared in those other TV successes The Onedin Line and The Liver Birds.
    The Lovers film, which is distributed by British Lion, catches the special blend of down-to-earth common sense, humour and natural warmth of the Manchester people. Apart from showing the character of the city, it also uses well-known places like Manchester United Football Ground and the George Best boutique. The theme of the film is, however, applicable to and place in the country - indeed, to any country in the world.
PHILIP BRADFORD

It's almost love locked out for Geoffrey (above) when
Beryl's brolly comes between them during a rainstorm.
But below there's nothing to come between them as
they loll on a cosy domestic hearthrug.

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