''Me Mammy'' is a British

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ...

that aired on

BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

from 1968 to 1971. Starring

Milo O'Shea Milo Donal O'Shea (2 June 1926 – 2 April 2013) was an Irish actor. He was twice nominated for the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for his performances in '' Staircase'' (1968) and '' Mass Appeal'' (1982). Early life O'Shea was born and ...

, it was written by

Hugh Leonard Hugh Leonard (9 November 1926 – 12 February 2009) was an Irish dramatist, television writer, and essayist. In a career that spanned 50 years, Leonard wrote nearly 30 full-length plays, 10 one-act plays, three volumes of essay, two autobiograph ...

Background

''Me Mammy'' first aired as pilot within the seventh series of the BBC's ''

Comedy Playhouse ''Comedy Playhouse'' is a long-running British anthology series of one-off unrelated sitcoms that aired for 120 episodes from 1961 to 1975. Many episodes later graduated to their own series, including ''Steptoe and Son'', '' Meet the Wife'', ' ...

''. The pilot and first series were made in

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

. Despite playing his mother, Anna Manahan was only two years older than her on-screen son played by Milo O'Shea. Many of the episodes are missing and presumed

wiped Lost television broadcasts are mostly those early television programs which cannot be accounted for in studio archives (or in personal archives) usually because of deliberate destruction or neglect. Common reasons for loss A significant prop ...

. Only the first episode of the first series and the entire third series survive, However, although recorded in colour, the last series only survives in black and white.

Cast

as Benjamin "Bunjy" Kennefick *

Anna Manahan Anna Maria Manahan (18 October 1924 – 8 March 2009) was an Irish stage, film and television actress. Manahan received two Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nominations for her performances in the 1968 production of '' Lovers'' an ...

as Mrs Kennefick *

Yootha Joyce Yootha Joyce Needham (20 August 1927 – 24 August 1980), known as Yootha Joyce, was an English actress best known for playing Mildred Roper opposite Brian Murphy in the sitcom ''Man About the House'' (1973–1976) and its spin-off ''George and ...

as Miss Argyll *

Ray McAnally Ray McAnally (30 March 1926 – 15 June 1989) was an Irish actor. He was the recipient of three BAFTA Awards in the late 1980s: two BAFTA Film Awards for Best Supporting Actor (for ''The Mission'' in 1986 and ''My Left Foot'' in 1989), and ...

as Father Patrick * David Kelly as Cousin Enda

Plot

Bunjy Kennefick is an

Irish Irish may refer to: Common meanings * Someone or something of, from, or related to: ** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe ***Éire, Irish language name for the isle ** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...

mother's boy living in

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. He is a top executive of a company and aspires to live a bachelor lifestyle. However, his old-fashioned

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

mother often puts a stop to his plans, many of them involving his secretary and girlfriend, Miss Argyll. Other characters include Father Patrick, often mocked for his dubious morality, and Cousin Enda. The episodes feature some surreal elements, such as "Catholic Chess", which pits pieces modelled on prominent Catholic figures against one modelled on prominent Protestant figures. On the Catholic side of the board are buttons which can drop opposing pieces through trapdoors, "sending them to Hell". Another example was the board game 'Popopoly' ("Hold your own Papal elections".). Bunjy's mother would pray to bizarrely named saints.

Episodes

Pilot (1968)

*Pilot (14 June 1968) (part of ''

'')

Series One (1969)

#"The Day We Blessed the Bench" (15 September 1969) #"The Day Verilia Went to Pieces" (22 September 1969) #"The Night Me Mammy Snuffed It" (29 September 1969) #"The Day the Saints Went Marching Out" (13 October 1969) #"The First Time I Saw Paris" (20 October 1969) #"The Day Concepta Got England" (27 October 1969)

Series Two (1970)

#"The Night Miss Argyll Got Canonised" (7 August 1970) #"Me Mammy's Tomb" (14 August 1970) #"The Night We Saw Old Nick" (21 August 1970) #"The Last of the Red-Hot Mammies" (28 August 1970) #"The Night Edna Entered a Convent" (4 September 1970) #"The Night I Left the Church" (11 September 1970) #"The Morning After Finnegan's Wake" (18 September 1970)

Series Three (1971)

#"The Day We Went Dutch" (23 April 1971) #"The Night The Banshee Brought Me Home " (30 April 1971) #"The Day I Got Engaged" (7 May 1971) #"The Day I Went Commercial" (14 May 1971) #"The Sacred Chemise of Miss Argyll" (21 May 1971) #"The Mammy Murder Case" (28 May 1971) #"How To Be A Mammy in Law" (11 June 1971)

Surviving episodes

References

;Specific ;General *

Mark Lewisohn Mark Lewisohn (born 16 June 1958) is an English historian and biographer. Since the 1980s, he has written many reference books about the Beatles and has worked for EMI, MPL Communications and Apple Corps.

, "Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy", BBC Worldwide Ltd, 2003

External links

''Me Mammy''
bbc.co.uk * {{DEFAULTSORT:Me Mammy 1968 British television series debuts 1971 British television series endings 1960s British sitcoms 1970s British sitcoms BBC television sitcoms Comedy Playhouse Lost BBC episodes