This is a transcript of the As Time Goes By segment of A SALUTE TO BRITISH COMEDY, which ran during PBS' recent pledge break. The program was hosted by Penelope Keith, star of the The Good Life and To a Manor Born.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE "MISSING" TRANSCRIPT Penelope Keith: "Waiting for God" is comedy with a message. And so in a subtle way is our next featured series, "As Time Goes By." It's a gentle, sweetly funny romance about young sweethearts who accidentally reconnect after 30 years. This heart-warming story of middle-aged love blossoms in the hands of masterful actors like Geoffrey Palmer and Dame Judi Dench.
Judi Dench:My character is this nurse ... and fell in love with this young man, and incidentally, the pictures at the very, very beginning of us young, which might be quite interesting for everybody, is Geoffrey's son and my daughter. And then they kind of turn into us. I mean, the character is just -- this woman and they re-meet. In fact, you, if you remember, at the very beginning of it, you actually fancy my daughter [addressing this comment to Geoffrey re: the Lionel character]. Took a shine to my daughter. see, his part is cast very, very cleverly. [They giggle}And he's kind of Don Juan, he is.
Geoffrey Palmer: Aging Don Juan, yes.
Judi Dench:And then it suddenly transpires that these two people who knew each other all this time ago and had written letters to each other that were never actually got through to each other. And so it started from that. Perhaps a lot of the appeal of this series is the fact that here are two people, certainly in their 50s, [grins here and so does Geoffrey] a bit more, going through an experience, experiences that really happen to young people at the beginning, you know, at the beginning of dating and when they're going to get married, or whether they're going to get married, or whether they're meeting their in-laws and things.
Geoffrey Palmer:That's right, I must take you home to see mummy, when in fact, I didn't do that. I said, come home and meet daddy.
Judi Dench:And meet daddy, that's right.
(here they show the scene with Jean and Lionel having a snack at the train station on the way to meet Rocky)
Judi Dench: The chance, therefore, to do something like play Queen Victoria, and play Jean Pargetter, and then Esme in "Amy's View," and then Elizabeth the First. and they're all very, very, very different characters and they all present a kind of challenge.
Geoffrey Palmer: The series is about two characters, in their different ways set in their ways, isn't it?
Judi Dench: Yes, and trying to come to some kind of, of, of ...
Geoffrey Palmer: Consensus ad idem, as we say in latin. Yeah, and the scene that shows that is when I, who I don't have a lot of money, and certainly don't like spending it, make the grand gesture and say, "Hey, we'll go out to eat."
(Here they show a scene in which Jean is in the kitchen laboring over a what she hopes will be a lovely dinner and he is casually tells her that he has made reservations at a restaurant. He suggests she serves this dinner the next evening.)
Judi Dench:And that actually is something that kind of echoes in each of the episodes, really, throughout the series, is the fact that they do go always back to saying, "Gosh, the time we've wasted. The time that we could've been together all this time. The time that we've wasted."
Geoffrey Palmer: I think what is... it is the actual speaking of those feelings That is, makes it kind of touching, isn't it? And the admission that it's -- "I'm glad we did get together. "
(here they play the scene in Rocky's living room where Jean and Lionel have a dance).
Penelope Keith: What a lovely way to end this program and our delightful time together. and by the way, you'll be pleased to know that a new set of "As Time Goes By" episodes is in production.
As I said at the outset, I'm really very proud of my part in this 25-year-old exchange of laughter between our two countries, and I hope you'll have me back sometime very soon. This ended the program, but at the very end, after the credits, there was an appeal by Dame Judi to send in your pledge to the local PBS station. Here is the complete text of that appeal.
Thank you very much to Christie for sending me the tape so that I could transcribe the segment.