Trivia / Bless This House

Trivia for the television series:

• Acting for Two: Sid James plays both Sid Abbott and Alf Carter in "Will the Real Sid Abbott Please Stand Up".
• Actor-Inspired Element: Sid James would often suggest to producer William G. Stewart how to add to the series' humour, which more often than not was included in the scripts. He also helped Stewart with where to aim the cameras to shoot a scene on one occasion.
• Cast the Runner-Up: After Robin Askwith missed out on the role of Mike, he was cast as Sam in the Series 2 episode "A Touch of the Unknown".
• Completely Different Title:
  • Hungary: Domestic Liar.
  • Italy: Mr. Abbott and Family.
• Creator Backlash: While Sid James was initially pleased with the show, owing to its success in the ratings, he began to dislike working on it after the third series, as he believed the quality of the scripts was slowly getting worse. Despite secretly hoping the series would be cancelled and allow him to move on, the show continued until he died in 1976.
• Creator's Favourite Episode:
  • Sid James' favourite was "The Frozen Limit" from Series 6.
  • Sally Geeson said in an interview that "A Man of Consequence" was a favourite among all the cast.
• The Danza: Sid James and Sally Geeson as Sid and Sally Abbott.
• Died During Production: Sid James died while Series 6 was airing and cancelled plans for another two series and a second film adaptation.
• Hostility on the Set: Sid James and Robin Stewart had a rocky on-set relationship due to Stewart's lack of punctuality in learning his lines.
• Playing Against Type: Sid James plays a family man here, a far cry from the wheeler-dealers and Dirty Old Men he was best known for playing in the Carry On... Series.
• Post-Script Season: Series 5 was intended to be the last, however, two years later, Sid James was talked into returning for a sixth.
• Recycled Script: Part of the Series 2 episode, "Strangers in the Night", takes its plot from the George and the Dragon episode, "Court Case". Both series were written by Vince Powell and Harry Driver, and starred Sid James.
• Romance on the Set: The year the show ended, Sally Geeson married producer William G. Stewart.
• Troubled Production: The first seven episodes of Series 1 had to be filmed in black and white due to a colour technicians' strike at Thames Television.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Some of the earliest concepts of the series had Sid James not as a family man, but rather as an East End pub landlord, a boxing promoter, or a betting shop owner.
  • Robin Askwith narrowly missed out on the role of Mike in favour of Robin Stewart. Askwith did however play Mike in The Movie when Stewart was unavailable.
  • The first few episodes of Series 1 were filmed in black and white; they were intended to have been in colour, but they were produced at the time of the ITV colour strike.
  • Before James' death, plans were in the air for a seventh and eighth series.
• You Look Familiar: Many actors would pop up again as different One-Shot Characters from time to time. The most notable was James Appleby, who played a policeman in "A Rolls by Any Other Name", a van driver in "It Comes to Us All in the End", another policeman in "Entente Not So Cordiale", a lorry driver in "A Beef in His Bonnet" and a third policeman in "Some Enchanted Evening".

Trivia for the 1972 film:

• Cast Incest: Robin Askwith fell in love with Sally Geeson (who played his sister) during filming. When Askwith's partner at the time, Cheryl Hall, found out, she got physically violent with him and left him with a black eye and several stitches.
• Cast the Runner-Up: With Robin Stewart already booked for the summer season on Bournemouth Pier, the role of Mike instead went to Robin Askwith, the original choice for Mike on the TV series.
• Creator Couple: Annie Hobbs was played by Janet Brown, the wife of Peter Butterworth, who took over the role of Trevor from Anthony Jackson.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Robin Askwith took over the role of Mike from Robin Stewart.
  • Peter Butterworth took over the role of Trevor from Anthony Jackson.
• What Could Have Been:
  • While Robin Askwith was cast as Mike in the end, Christopher Timothy was also considered for the role.
  • The sequence of Mike cooking in the café was originally much more spontaneously done by Askwith, however, there was an issue with the negative of the take and it had to be reshot which Askwith thought lacked the edge of the original.

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