Saturday 24 January 2015

Launching the Campaign to make 21st April International Father Ted Day

Did you know that if you take the "the" out of Father Ted, he's farted ( a fact one of my young nephews found hilarious at the time)? But seriously, did you also know that on 21st April it will be 20 years since the first Episode of Father Ted was shown on TV? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Ted) and I believe we should start a campaign to make the 21st April International Father Ted day. As the series was a fantastic advertisement for the Roman Catholic clergy, every Church should organise a weekend of Father Ted related activities and every member of the congregation should be offered a nice cup of tea. 

I'd also like to see entries from members of the congregation to nominate there own favourite Father Ted, Father Dougal and Father Jack's. Although not having some of the personality traits of the said Fathers, in Mill Hill I believe the perfect Father Ted team would have been from the late 1960's with Father Ray Armstrong as Dougal, Father Miles Dowly as Father Ted and Father Andy Kavanagh as Father Jack. Does any of the Mill Hill contingent have a view on this choice?

 In my opinion Father Ted was the finest sitcom of the 1990's and the tragic death of Dermot Morgan cut short what was a great concept. Most of us who were born and raised as Roman Catholics in the UK instantly recognise many of features of the series as being well observed and funny. The humour was always gentle and lacking in vulgarity, whilst being well observed. Amongst my favourite scene was the one where the Priests get stranded in the ladies Lingerie section of the local department store and are desperate not to be spotted by parishioners, only to run into a gang of other priests. Whatever mood I find myself in, I am always cheered up by the series. I often laugh when I discuss it with non Catholic friends, as they whilst they find it funny, they don't see how well observed it is.

So come on, lets all get together and get Channel Four to launch International Father Ted day on 21st April ! It is a national treasure and we could all do with reminding just how good it was.

1 comment:

Mrs T said...

I remember when Tichborne used to pretend to know about politics. Is see now he is an entertainment blogger. No surprise there, he's been writing fiction badly for years!!!!