History Series / TillDeathUsDoPart

'''''[=Till Death Us Do Part=]''''' is a British situation comedy created by Johnny Speight. The series centered on Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), a highly conservative, working-class man who espouses racist and anti-socialist views, and his family consisting of his long-suffering wife Else (Dandy Nichols), his more open-minded daughter Rita (Una Stubbs) and her lazy socialist husband Mike Rawlins (Creator/AnthonyBooth). Alf and Mike regularly clashed over their opposing world-views, representing the generation gap between younger, more left-wing British citizens and older, right-wing citizens as well as addressing the increasingly prevalent political issues in British society.

* EverybodySmokes: All four main characters did, and Alf was a staunch defender of smoking. Notably, Alf was always shown as a pipe smoker, to the point where Warren Mitchell was named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipe_Smoker_of_the_Year Pipe Smoker of the Year]] in 1967 (although he refused to accept the award).

* LongRunners: The pilot episode was broadcast in 1965, and the last episode of the sequel/aftershow series ''In Sickness and in Health'' was broadcast in 1992 -- so a run of 27 years, admittedly with a few gaps. Warren Mitchell continued to play Alf in stage shows after that, and only stopped doing so when Johnny Speight died in 1998.

'''''[=Till Death Us Do Part=]''''' is a British situation comedy created by Johnny Speight. The series centered on Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell), a highly conservative, working-class man who espouses racist and anti-socialist views, and his family consisting of his long-suffering wife Else (Dandy Nichols), his more open-minded daughter Rita (Una Stubbs) and her lazy socialist husband Mike Rawlins (Anthony Booth). Alf and Mike regularly clashed over their opposing world-views, representing the generation gap between younger, more left-wing British citizens and older, right-wing citizens as well as addressing the increasingly prevalent political issues in British society.

* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series, the in-universe explanation being that they had moved to Mike's native Liverpool. Una Stubbs agreed to reprise her role, which meant that Rita occasionally visited her parents, but Anthony Booth refused to reprise his. Eventually, an in-universe explanation for this was given -- like their American equivalents the Stivics, he and Rita divorced.

* HumiliationConga: In "Uemployment" (the last episode of the original series), Alf received a telegram from Else (who by this point had left him and moved to Australia) requesting a divorce ... on the same day he was made redundant.

* StayInTheKitchen. Taken up to eleven with Alf, whose dislike of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher arose from his belief in this trope rather than his views on her politics (if anything, she was probably too liberal for his tastes).

* StayInTheKitchen. Taken up to eleven with Alf, whose dislike of UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher arose from his belief in this trope.

* HumiliationConga: In "Uemployment" (the last episode of the original series), Alf received a telegram from Elsie (who by this point had left him and moved to Australia) requesting a divorce ... on the same day he was made redundant.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage. Else, who did not share her husband's extreme views, actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith Bunker, who tended not to react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo". [[AwLookTheyReallyDoLoveEachOther Alf was shown to be]] [[TheMourningAfter genuinely devastated by Else's death, though]].

* TheMovie: Most British sitcoms of this era got at least one. This one got two -- ''Till Death Us Do Part'' (1969), in which Alf and Elsie's younger years are explored, and ''The Alf Garnett Saga'' (1972), notable for Alf inadvertently [[MushroomSamba tripping on LSD]]. Ray Davies of Music/TheKinks did the theme tune for the former.

After a pilot episode broadcast in 1965, the series aired on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC1]] from 1966 to 1968, and again from 1972 to 1975. There followed a continuation series (''Till Death...'') on Creator/{{ITV}} in 1981 and a sequel (''In Sickness and in Health'') on the BBC which ran from 1985 to 1992. Alf Garnett became an iconic figure in British culture and Mitchell would continue playing the character on stage until Speight's death in 1998.

** [=ITV's=] ''Till Death...'' saw a reunited Alf and Else move down to Eastbourne with their friend Min, whose husband Bert had died. Mike and Rita were no longer main characters, although the latter did appear in three episodes. It ran for one series (of six episodes).

* BrickJoke: The cause of Alf's health problems in "In Sickness and in Health" (the 1967 episode, not the 1985-92 {{Aftershow}}) is eventually revealed to be the coin he accidentally swallowed with his Christmas pudding in "Peace and Goodwill. Seven episodes ago.

* ChristmasEpisode: Several. The 1966 one was in fact the first episode of the second series.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage. Else, who did not share her husband's extreme views, actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith Bunker, who tended not to react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo". Alf was shown to be genuinely devastated by Else's death, though.

The series aired on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC1]] from 22 July, 1965 to 16 December, 1975. There followed a continuation series (''Till Death...'') on Creator/{{ITV}} in 1981 and a sequel (''In Sickness and in Health'') on the BBC which ran from 1985 to 1992. Alf Garnett became an iconic figure in British culture and Mitchell would continue playing the character on stage until Speight's death in 1998.

* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series, their absence being explained in-universe as them having moved to Mike's native Liverpool. Una Stubbs agreed to reprise her role, which meant that Rita occasionally visited her parents, but Anthony Booth refused to reprise his. Eventually, an in-universe explanation for this was given -- like their American equivalents the Stivics, he and Rita divorced.

** In the later series, Alf's council-provided carer, Winston, is both black ''and'' gay. Although this was an obvious source of antagonism, Alf's views did soften in his old age -- at one point he took Winston and his cousin in as lodgers, and he was shown to be on moderately good terms with the local Pakistani shopkeeper and a Jewish neighbour.

* LongRunners: The pilot episode was broadcast in 1965, and the last episode of the sequel/aftershow series ''In Sickness and in Health'' was broadcast in 1992 -- so a run of 27 years, admittedly with a few gaps.

* ObfuscatingDisability: When Else gets a wheelchair, Alf uses it to get into the disabled section at Upton Park ... but his subterfuge is revealed when he jumps up to celebrate when West Ham score.

* EverybodySmokes: All four main characters did.

* ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere: The 1967 episode "I Can Give It Up Any Time I Like" saw Alf and Mike both try to give up smoking. While Mike did well, Alf struggled, especially since he's a pipe smoker and he sees UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson smoking a pipe on TV. The fact that Else and Rita ''continued smoking'' while their husbands tried to go without didn't exactly help either.
* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series, their absence being explained in-universe as them having moved to Mike's native Liverpool. Una Stubbs agreed to reprise her role, which meant that Rita occasionally visited her parents, but Anthony Booth refused to reprise his. Eventually, an in-universe explanation for this was given -- like their American equivalents the Stivics, he and Rita divorced .

* LongRunners: The pilot episode was broadcast in 1965, and the last episode of the sequel series ''In Sickness and in Health'' was broadcast in 1992 -- so a run of 27 years, admittedly with a few gaps.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage. Else, who did not share her husband's extreme views, actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith Bunker, who tended not to react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo". Off-screen, Rita and Mike eventually divorced.

** [=ITV's=] ''Till Death...''' saw a reunited Alf and Else move down to Eastbourne with their friend Min, whose husband Bert had died. Mike and Rita were no longer main characters, although the latter did appear in three episodes. It ran for one series (of six episodes).

* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series, their absence being explained in-universe as them having moved to Mike's native Liverpool. Una Stubbs agreed to occasionally reprise her role, which meant that Rita occasionally visited her parents, but Anthony Booth refused to reprise his. Eventually, an in-universe explanation for this was given -- like their American equivalents the Stivics, he and Rita divorced .

* TakeThat: To [[MoralGuardians Mary Whitehouse]], whose criticism of the show (particularly the profane language) prompted Speight to write the episode "Alf's Dilemma". Broadcast in February 1967, it begins with Alf reading Mary Whitehouse's book, ''Cleaning Up TV'' -- which is burned by Mike and Rita at the end of the episode, chanting "Unclean! Unclean!" while they do so.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage. Else, who did not share her husband's extreme views, actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith Bunker, who tended not to react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo".

* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series (explained in-universe by them having moved to Liverpool), although Rita occasionally visited her parents. Anthony Booth refused to reprise his role as Mike, and so and in-universe explanation for his absence was that, rather like their American equivalents the Stivics, he and Rita eventually divorced .
* EvenEvilHasStandards: Alf is a loud-mouthed crude bigot who despises black people, Asian people, gays, left-wingers, hippies, Scousers and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking those who are not West Ham fans]]. But on a family holiday in Bournemouth, when the taxi driver senses a kindred spirit and goes off on an anti-Semitic rant complete with hints that the Holocaust wasn't entirely a bad thing, the sort of rant that would have earned him a handshake from Goebbels, even Alf is clearly shocked into silence and cannot agree with him.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage. Else, who did not share her husband's extreme views, actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith, who usually did not react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo".

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage which involved both constantly hurling insults at each other. Else actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series. Unlike Edith, who usually did not react to Archie whenever he insulted her, Else usually gave as good as she got, calling Alf a "pig" whenever he called her a "silly moo".

** [[TheCharacterDiedWithHim The Character Died With Her]]: Dandy Nichols, who played Else, died in early 1986, not long after the first series of the sequel ''In Sickness and in Health'' was broadcast. Subsequent episodes showed Alf having to deal with old age as a widower.

* ColdTurkeysAreEverywhere:
* CommutingOnABus: Mike and Rita were not regular characters in the later series (explained in-universe by them having moved to Liverpool), although Rita occasionally visited her parents.

* AwfulWeddedLife: Unlike their American equivalents, Alf and Else had a ''very'' dysfunctional marriage which involved both constantly hurling insults at each other. Else actually left Alf in the early 1970s and even filed for divorce, but they were back together by the time of the 1981 sequel series.