6.23 - Love All

[peabody]

Discuss, review and rate Love All.

Written by Jeremy Burnham
Directed by Peter Sykes

[norw27]

Splendidly silly story but executed very well, with great performances from Veronica Strong and the rest of the guest cast and a brand new score from Laurie Johnson, (something that becomes greatly missed in the last series as snippets from old scores get reused more frequently, and sometimes distractingly) help make this an enjoyable episode.

[darren]

9/10

After the disappointing, False Witness, Jeremy Burnham comes along with a fun love propelled script. It's wonderfully silly. The piano computer that writes the novels. The microdots (I need to check that as it doesn't seem right) hidden in the book causing people to fall in love with the first person they see and Steed covering his waistcoat in them (even getting the villainous Bromfield to fall for him!).

Burnham's wife, Veronica Strong does a great job in her dual role as cleaner Martha and sexbomb Martha. I always admire an actress who can dress down, it shows real vulnerability. And Terrance Alexander makes another appearance, he's so effortlessly suave. I love Thelma. Patsy Rowlands and Macnee play off one another so well as he flirts with sweet words about her hair colour and she's rather demused by it,

Thelma: It's not original you know.
Steed: Your hair?
Thelma: Your line.

I love it when Steed fakes an obsession with something, in this case the romance novels.

The scenes between Anne Rye as the policewoman and Brian Oulton as Tait are equally funny.

I don't think that Tara is used especially well especially with Mother fobbing off her suggestions.

It's another great show for director Peter Sykes making sadly his final job on the show. There's great diversity to his shots, high shots, low shot, tracking shots. It all helps to keep things interesting.

Laurie Johnson's score is easily one of his best. It's romantic as well as being downbeat and slightly twisted. Nice used of music from A Touch of Brimstone for Tara's fight.

The tag scene doesn't really work as Tara is in love with Steed anyway and the hundreds of girls who followed Steed are clearly two women, one of whom is rather old. But it's harmless.

[Rhonda]

7 from me. Like Rodder's lady's disguise.

[Ian Wegg]

The last episode I watched, "Wish You Were Here", I thought started brilliantly but crashed into farce so I gave it an average 5.

I found "Love All" to be completely different ... it was uniformly average from start to finish. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood but to me they might just as well have called this episode Carry On Avenging.

I couldn't avoid the irony in the scene where Thelma (played, appropriately, by Carry On regular Patsy Rowlands) reveals that the romantic novels are actually created by computer; it seemed to me this story was too.

Nothing much to complain about but nothing to recommend it either.

5 / 10

[Frankymole]

Just watched it on ITV4.

I can't really imagine the tag scene of Steed being hunted down to his home by love-crazed teenaged schoolgirls being acceptable in anything made these days.

I'm amazed they left it intact for this repeat broadcast, to be honest. All it will take is one complaint and it'll be banned in today's "cancel culture".

[darren]

The funny thing about the tag is that they've only got two extras for the scene - a young woman and an old woman with white hair. LOL

[Frankymole]

I don't think she's old, just very blonde. But it's almost impossible to tell through the fluted glass.

I never thought the big glass panels either side of Steed's door were a very security-conscious feature!

[dissolute]

I thought she was old - I think it's one of the crew, you see her in some location stills holding a script. Might be Peggy Spirito who did continuity.

[Frankymole]

I thought she was old - I think it's one of the crew, you see her in some location stills holding a script. Might be Peggy Spirito who did continuity.

Not "old" then - working age at most - and quite sprightly if she is, as she's jumping around very athletically! Platinum blonde or white hair = / = old!

Why would a continuity person be in front of the camera? I've never heard of that before!