Sink or Swim: The Complete Series [DVD]

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The Last Leg presenter Alex Brooker was born with hand and arm deformities and a twisted right leg that had to be amputated when he was a baby. How does he feel in 17C water? “I’ve only got one set of toes I can’t feel.” Upbeat guy. Brian lives in a flat above a petrol station in London (in the last series he moved to Newcastle to attend university). He's trying hard to make his way in the world, thus far with limited success. His girlfriend, Sonia, is a very serious minded young woman who is passionate only about things like vegetarianism and ecology. When Brian's younger brother, Steve, arrives in London looking for somewhere to stay, his lazy, cynical, noisy "Northern lout" attitude disrupts Brian's already messy life.

Sink or Swim is a BBC TV sitcom created and written by Alex Shearer. It ran for three series between 4 December 1980 and 14 October 1982 and stars Peter Davison as Brian Webber and Robert Glenister as his brother Steve. Sara Corper rounded out the cast as Brian's headstrong, vegan girlfriend Sonia, with whom Steve frequently clashed. Corper previously appeared in an episode of The Jim Davidson Show penned by Shearer, and he gets good mileage out of the comic contrast between her outspoken worldview and Brian's meek meanderings. Though other actors did appear, including Amanda Orton, Briony McRoberts, Gillian Taylforth, Ron Pember and Russell Wooton, the show rested on the shoulders of Davison and Glenister. The ultimate goal for the group is a relay swim across the channel between England and France in the final episode. Sink or Swim celebritiesOn paper, the character could be deeply irritating and it’s fair to say that there are some “it was acceptable in the ’80s” levels of unreconstructed, non-PC, alpha-male attitudes that Glenister is saddled with uttering which are, sadly, not always appropriately challenged; notably in some alarmingly homophobic dialogue that equates gay people to somehow being subnormal in Steve’s eyes and some casually racist language. But Glenister plays against the stereotypical ignorant Northerner trope and mines instead a vulnerability to his performance that stems from just how childish the character of Steve actually is. The most enjoyable thing about Sink Or Swim is the chemistry between Davison and Glenister. In his autobiography, Davison writes about how they got on famously and would frequently be unable to get through scenes due to uncontrollable laughter, citing one particular sequence in the Christmas special. Before starring as the fifth incarnation of television's favourite Time Lord, Peter Davison was a character actor. He got his big break in 1978 when he was cast as Tristan Farnon in drama All Creatures Great and Small Alongside Christopher Timothy and Robert Hardy, and his first foray into sitcom was Marks & Gran's Holding The Fort in 1980, alongside Patricia Hodge and Matthew Kelly; a sitcom that has, inexplicably, never been made available on home media. Much like Roy Clarke, Shearer's comic voice is gentle. His characters speak in badinage and whimsy. Take Steve's description of his love life: The biggest question of all concerns another Towie star, Georgia Kousoulou. Payne tells her there isn’t enough time left for her to get into shape to battle the cruel sea, so Kousoulou leaves the show – even though, ironically, she is a swimwear designer. “When you really think about it,” she had said earlier, “why would I want to swim?” Quite right. Why would anyone?

Holding The Fort and Sink Or Swim both started in 1980, and for the last two series of the latter he was filming concurrently with his opening series of Doctor Who. In the lead role, Peter Davison is at his well-meaning, slightly wet best as Brain Webber, a bespectacled prototype of the ’80s ‘New Man’ who is mostly wholly enamoured by the beliefs of his girlfriend Sonia, but whose more pragmatic Northern roots occasionally rise to the surface thanks, in the main, to Steve’s influence. In Steve, Robert Glenister delivers a fine comic performance which ought to be congratulated far more, given that this was his first TV role. The new series sees non-swimming celebrities take to the water in support of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Wes added of the ultimate challenge: “It’s not the distance I’m worried about, being out in the open sea, fingers crossed it will all be okay.”They’ll team up with a group of leading figures and professionals from the world of swimming who will offer vital training and support to transform them into strong swimmers, capable of taking on a series of challenges. Like Only Fools and Horses, Sink or Swim was filmed in Bristol doubling for London. Shearer later wrote the Nicholas Lyndhurst sitcom The Two of Us for LWT. Production of the sitcom overlapped the first two years of Davison also starring as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who, which imposed constraints on the recording schedules. [1] Cast

When Brian’s younger brother Steve (Robert Glenister) arrives in London looking for somewhere to stay, his lazy, cynical, noisy “Northern lout” attitude disrupts Brian’s already messy life. Brian Webber (Peter Davison) lives in a grotty bedsit at the least-fashionable end of Portobello Road and is trying hard to make his way in the world – so far with limited success. Sara Corper continued her career in TV comedy, reuniting with Jim Davidson for Up the Elephant and Round ther Castle (OK, with Davidson, I’m using the term comedy in its loosest terms obviously) and taking regular roles in 1985 sitcom Mann’s Best Friends (also released by Network DVD) and Red Dwarf star Norman Lovett’s shortlived but fondly remembered sitcom I, Lovett, as well as a semi-regular role as snobbish sister-in-law Phoebe in Rab C. Nesbitt; her 1993 appearance in which is her last credit on IMDB.The show also boasts a theme tune from sitcom veteran Ronnie Hazlehurst, the man behind the iconic opening tunes to the likes of Last Of The Summer Wine, Yes Minister and Sorry!. For Sink Or Swim, he opted not to compose an original tune, but instead arranged an instrumental version of The Hollies' 1969 hit He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother. The celebrities taking part in the show include Olympic gold medallist Linford Christie and Coronation Street star Sair Khan. In a nutshell, Sink or Swim is, like Seinfeld would become years later, a show about nothing. It threatens to pursue a plot at various stages throughout all three series… but on the whole this is a series which gets by on the charm of its three leads and Alex Shearer’s gently comic writing. And the key players really are charming, with a good mix of chemistry that is a delight to watch on screen.” Like Only Fools and Horses, Sink or Swim was filmed in Bristol doubling for London. Shearer later wrote the Nicholas Lyndhurst sitcom The Two of Us for LWT. Production of the sitcom overlapped the first two years of Davison also starring as the Fifth Doctor in Doctor Who, which imposed constraints on the recording schedules. [1]