Surprisingly, it took 29 years (1957 to 1988) for the idea to be realised.
ANDY CAPPS TV
With the newspaper strip syndicated to more than 50 countries and translated into 14 languages (Andy Capp is known as Kasket Karl in Denmark, Willi Wakker in Germany, Angelo Capello in Italy and, best of all, Andre Chapeau in France), here was a situation ideal for TV exploitation. Flo’s trademarks are her slippers, rolling pin (used mostly as a weapon) and rollered-hair. Capp is also a terrible chauvinist, his wife Flo being perpetually frustrated by her negligent hubbie, although she does occasionally get the last laugh. In short, Andy Capp is the classic anti-hero, an idler never seen without his trademark cloth cap and fag-end hanging from his bottom lip, whose home life consists of endless cups of tea, TV and kipping on the sofa, and whose outdoor life comprises drinking endless ale at the pub, visits to the betting shop, dodging the debt collector and the odd game of football.
Smythe has always seen Capp as someone from the north-east of England (he himself hails from Hartlepool), although the Capp traits are certainly not confined to gentlemen of that area. Then, in 1988, he attracted his own ITV series, written by the redoubtable Keith Waterhouse.Ĭapp was created and drawn by Reg Smythe, a talented artist with no formal qualifications but a fine eye for character. The subject of a newspaper cartoon strip since 1957, when he first appeared in the northern edition of the Daily Mirror, Andy became the star of a British stage musical in 1982, written by Trevor Peacock and with music by Alan Price. That most slothful of characters, Andy Capp did a rare thing in the 1980s: he stretched his legs and got about a bit. Reg Smythe the cartoonist, lived in Hartlepool and the Andy Capp cartoon is set there, sometimes local landmarks are featured in the cartoons.
0 kommentar(er)
