Odd Man Out

1970s British tv sitcom

Neville Sutcliffe, a camp owner of a Blackpool chip shop, inherits a candy rock factory in Littlehampton and also learns that he has a step-sister.

Neville Sutcliffe ran a Blackpool fish-and-chip shop when visit from a solicitor turned his life upside down. He grew up in a orphanage and now he learns that his father was owner of a candy rock factory in Littlehampton. Not to mention he has a half-sister, Dorothy, that now will share the inheritance with him. Neville sets out to Littlehampton, where he finds the factory to be ran-down and the whole company deep in debts. He sells his shop and together with Dorothy tries to run the family business.

In 1977 John Inman was a star in one of the best sitcoms of its era, Are You Being Served? on BBC, so of course he drew attention of ITV network, who always were looking for ways to poach some talent. With Vince Powell, who was involved in plenty of sitcoms for ITV since 1960s, cast involving pair of experienced comedy actors, Josephine Tewson (The Two Ronnies and later Keeping Up Appearances) and Peter Butterworth (Carry On films) it seemed like a very promising project.

However apart from using the fame of John Inman there was very little thought put behind the idea for Odd Man Out. The character of Neville Sutcliffe was not only a more or less copy of Mr. Humphries, character from Are You Being Served? that made Inman a household name, but also after first two episodes the main story of Neville and factory was simply abandoned. Rest of the first (and only) season looks like it was just put together without any deeper thought.

Neville is as camp and Mr. Humphries was, he tells similar risque jokes, similar double entendre sentences, but removed from the stuffy surroundings of Grace Brothers department store and ensemble cast similar to Are You Being Served? the character was just not that interesting any more. Not to mention that the scripts for the episodes were average at best, the characters lacked any depth and overall the sitcom was very chaotic - in one episode they are broke and desperate, in next they are doing well, and so on.

Overall a wasted opportunity for John Inman, who was looking for a project that could capitalise his fame gained from Are You Being Served?, but just like his later attempt (Take a Letter Mr Jones), Odd Man Out was not good enough to keep him in the spotlight. His camp comic style required a strong and conservative characters to let him shine, while all Odd Man Out and Take a Letter Mr Jones could offer him were hastily put together scripts full of clichés and bland characters in the background.

Rating	4.0
Funny	4 / 10
Entertaining	2 / 5
Characters	2 / 5
Nonrepetitive	2 / 5