The Dustbinmen
Encyclopedia
The Dustbinmen was a British
television
sitcom made by Granada Television
for ITV
, which starred Bryan Pringle
, Trevor Bannister
, Graham Haberfield
and Tim Wylton
. The show was a spin-off
from a one-off 90-minute TV movie "There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah" (1968) written by Jack Rosenthal
and directed by Michael Apted
. This led to the sitcom which ran for three series between 1969 and 1970. Rosenthal wrote all of the episodes of the first two series.
), Heavy Breathing (Trevor Bannister
), Winston (Graham Haberfield
) and Eric (Tim Wylton
) were the crew of dustcart 'Thunderbird 3' of the Corporation Cleansing Department - the name obviously being an ironic
reference to the spacecraft
in Thunderbirds
. Also known as 'Number 3 Gang', throughout the day they would collect dustbins and generally be rude to each other or anyone else. Cheese and Egg, whose real name was C. E. Petty, was a fervent Communist and the natural-born leader of the gang; with his knowledge, the gang could get out of sticky situations if they were lucky. Heavy Breathing was 'the one with the good looks', forced to spend much of his time pleasuring housewives - something he finds quite annoying when mostly he would rather just have a rest. Winston Platt was a die-hard fan of Manchester City
Football Club who saw one of the players Colin Bell
as a god. Eric was the sensitive Welsh Coronation Street fan who spent most of time talking about television and saving to buy a colour tv for his mother.
played the role in the first series. From the second series onwards, Brian Wilde
took over the role, but as a different character with a different real name, 'Bernard Pooke'.
Another character that appeared in most episodes was Smellie Ibbotson (John Barrett). He was the scavenger on the tips to start with, and later promoted to Bloody Delilah's abdog, reporting on who was skiving and what they were up to. Not everyone liked Smellie - not just the fact that he was smelly, but also was difficult to understand as he had no teeth.
played Cheese and Egg, Frank Windsor
played Bloody Delilah, whose real name was Mr Sinclair. Harold Innocent
played Heavy Breathing and Henry Livings
was Eric.
was mentioned a few times by Eric; Graham Haberfield, aka Winston once played Jerry Booth in the show. Julie Goodyear
appeared in two episodes as a housewife; she later played Bet Lynch
. Barbara Knox
(at that time Mullaney) who later played Rita Littlewood/Fairclough/Sullivan played a housewife who read tea leaves. Jill Summers
(Phyllis Pearce) played a cleaner in one episode. Peter Dudley
(Bert Tilsley) appeared as a man in a hospital corridor in one episode and Bryan Mosley
(Alf Roberts
) once appeared as a doctor. Furthermore, the opening and closing titles contain a recurring motif of a flower in a discarded beercan; "Newton and Ridley
" (the Rovers Return brewers) is printed on this beercan.
Jack Rosenthal left the show to concentrate on developing another Granada sitcom, The Lovers
which co-starred Paula Wilcox
. She appeared in two episodes of The Dustbinmen as Naomi, Winston's girlfriend.
There are links with Last of the Summer Wine
too. Brian Wilde, who played the final Bloody Delilah, played Walter Foggy Dewhurst in the programme. John Comer
who played Sid in the programme, once played a policeman in The Dustbinmen and Trevor Bannister has a recurring role as the golf club captain Toby Mulberry Smith.
In 1988 Brian Wilde starred with Trevor Bannister in the BBC1 show Wyatt's Watchdogs
, a short-lived sitcom about bickering neighbours trying to run a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
In 2005 the sole surviving material was released on Region 2 DVD
by Network DVD.
, its characters would be expected to swear frequently, but at the time most swear words were forbidden in scripts, especially sitcoms. The characters frequently used the word "piggin'" as an all purpose substitute for swearing, just as characters in Porridge used the word "naff". There was almost more controversy over this than over actual swearing, with accusations of cowardice on the one hand, and complaints about the "made up" swear words on the other.
In the closing credits of the television series, the Granada "G-arrow" logo appears in black on a light coloured background (later blue on yellow) before rapidly expanding, switching to its usual "negative" colours and returning to normal size. This would appear to be the only instance of the Granada logo being toyed with in this way, since Granada reportedly disapproved of anything that might appear to trivialise its corporate image.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
sitcom made by Granada Television
Granada Television
Granada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
for ITV
ITV
ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
, which starred Bryan Pringle
Bryan Pringle
Bryan Pringle was a British actor who appeared in television, film and theatre productions.Born in Tamworth, Staffordshire but raised in the Lancashire town of Bolton he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In 1958, he married character actress Anne Jameson; together they had...
, Trevor Bannister
Trevor Bannister
Trevor Gordon Bannister was an English actor best known for playing the womanising junior salesman Mr. Lucas in the sitcom Are You Being Served? from 1972 to 1979, and for his role as Toby Mulberry Smith in the longest-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, from 2003 until it ended its run in 2010...
, Graham Haberfield
Graham Haberfield
Graham Haberfield was an English actor. Born in Chesterfield, the son of a railway porter, he was educated at Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Belper...
and Tim Wylton
Tim Wylton
Tim Wylton is a British television actor best known for his roles Stanley Dawkins in My Hero and Lol Ferris in As Time Goes By....
. The show was a spin-off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
from a one-off 90-minute TV movie "There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah" (1968) written by Jack Rosenthal
Jack Rosenthal
Jack Morris Rosenthal CBE was an English playwright, who wrote 129 early episodes of the ITV soap opera Coronation Street and over 150 screenplays, including original TV plays, feature films, and adaptations.-Biography:...
and directed by Michael Apted
Michael Apted
Michael David Apted, CMG is an English director, producer, writer and actor. He is one of the most prolific British film directors of his generation but is best known for his work on the Up Series of documentaries and the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough.On 29 June 2003 he was elected...
. This led to the sitcom which ran for three series between 1969 and 1970. Rosenthal wrote all of the episodes of the first two series.
Main characters
Cheese and Egg (Bryan PringleBryan Pringle
Bryan Pringle was a British actor who appeared in television, film and theatre productions.Born in Tamworth, Staffordshire but raised in the Lancashire town of Bolton he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. In 1958, he married character actress Anne Jameson; together they had...
), Heavy Breathing (Trevor Bannister
Trevor Bannister
Trevor Gordon Bannister was an English actor best known for playing the womanising junior salesman Mr. Lucas in the sitcom Are You Being Served? from 1972 to 1979, and for his role as Toby Mulberry Smith in the longest-running sitcom Last of the Summer Wine, from 2003 until it ended its run in 2010...
), Winston (Graham Haberfield
Graham Haberfield
Graham Haberfield was an English actor. Born in Chesterfield, the son of a railway porter, he was educated at Herbert Strutt Grammar School, Belper...
) and Eric (Tim Wylton
Tim Wylton
Tim Wylton is a British television actor best known for his roles Stanley Dawkins in My Hero and Lol Ferris in As Time Goes By....
) were the crew of dustcart 'Thunderbird 3' of the Corporation Cleansing Department - the name obviously being an ironic
Irony
Irony is a rhetorical device, literary technique, or situation in which there is a sharp incongruity or discordance that goes beyond the simple and evident intention of words or actions...
reference to the spacecraft
Spacecraft
A spacecraft or spaceship is a craft or machine designed for spaceflight. Spacecraft are used for a variety of purposes, including communications, earth observation, meteorology, navigation, planetary exploration and transportation of humans and cargo....
in Thunderbirds
Thunderbirds (TV series)
Thunderbirds is a British mid-1960s science fiction television show devised by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and made by AP Films using a form of marionette puppetry dubbed "Supermarionation"...
. Also known as 'Number 3 Gang', throughout the day they would collect dustbins and generally be rude to each other or anyone else. Cheese and Egg, whose real name was C. E. Petty, was a fervent Communist and the natural-born leader of the gang; with his knowledge, the gang could get out of sticky situations if they were lucky. Heavy Breathing was 'the one with the good looks', forced to spend much of his time pleasuring housewives - something he finds quite annoying when mostly he would rather just have a rest. Winston Platt was a die-hard fan of Manchester City
Manchester City F.C.
Manchester City Football Club is an English Premier League football club based in Manchester. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's , they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894...
Football Club who saw one of the players Colin Bell
Colin Bell
Colin Bell MBE , is a former English football player who was born in Hesleden, County Durham, England. Nicknamed "The King of the Kippax" , and Nijinsky after the famous racehorse , Bell is widely regarded as Manchester City's greatest ever player...
as a god. Eric was the sensitive Welsh Coronation Street fan who spent most of time talking about television and saving to buy a colour tv for his mother.
Other characters
The Cleansing Department's Inspector was always known as Bloody Delilah regardless of who he was. He kept the nickname because, according to Cheese and Egg in episode 2.1, "they're all bloody Delilahs". John WoodvineJohn Woodvine
John Woodvine is an English stage and screen actor who has appeared in more than 70 theatre productions, as well as a similar number of television and film roles.-Early life:...
played the role in the first series. From the second series onwards, Brian Wilde
Brian Wilde
Brian George Wilde was an English actor, best known for his roles in television comedy, including Mr Barrowclough in Porridge and "Foggy" Dewhurst in Last of the Summer Wine...
took over the role, but as a different character with a different real name, 'Bernard Pooke'.
Another character that appeared in most episodes was Smellie Ibbotson (John Barrett). He was the scavenger on the tips to start with, and later promoted to Bloody Delilah's abdog, reporting on who was skiving and what they were up to. Not everyone liked Smellie - not just the fact that he was smelly, but also was difficult to understand as he had no teeth.
Series 1 (1969)
- Episode 1 (23 Sep 69)
- Episode 2 (30 Sep 69)
- Episode 3 (7 Oct 69)
- Episode 4 (14 Oct 69)
- Episode 5 (21 Oct 69)
- Episode 6 (28 Oct 69)
Series 2 (1970)
- Episode 1 (24 Mar 70)
- Episode 2 (31 Mar 70)
- Episode 3 (7 Apr 70)
- Episode 4 (14 Apr 70)
- Episode 5 (21 Apr 70)
- Episode 6 (28 Apr 70)
- Episode 7 (5 May 70)
Series 3 (1970)
- Episode 1 (20 Jul 70)
- Episode 2 (27 Jul 70)
- Episode 3 (3 Aug 70)
- Episode 4 (10 Aug 70)
- Episode 5 (17 Aug 70)
- Episode 6 (24 Aug 70)
- Episode 7 (31 Aug 70)
Casting differences between pilot and sitcom
While the main characters in "There's a Hole in Your Dustbin, Delilah" were the same as those in the series, Winston and Smellie Ibbotson were the only roles to be played by the same actors in the sitcom; in the play, Jack MacGowranJack MacGowran
John Joseph "Jack" MacGowran was an Irish character actor, whose last film role was as the alcoholic director Burke Dennings in The Exorcist. He was probably best known for his work with Samuel Beckett.-Stage career:...
played Cheese and Egg, Frank Windsor
Frank Windsor
Frank Windsor is an English actor, mainly on television.He attended Queen Mary's Grammar School, Walsall. He began his career on radio and made an appearance in a 1953 film of Henry V...
played Bloody Delilah, whose real name was Mr Sinclair. Harold Innocent
Harold Innocent
Harold Sidney Innocent was a British actor who appeared in many film and television roles.After attending Broad Street Secondary Modern School in Coventry, Innocent worked for a short time as an office clerk...
played Heavy Breathing and Henry Livings
Henry Livings
Henry Livings was an English playwright and screenwriter, who worked extensively in British television and theatre from the 1960s to the 1990s.-Early life and career:...
was Eric.
Links with other programmes
The Dustbinmen has links with other programmes, many of which were also made by Granada Television. Coronation StreetCoronation Street
Coronation Street is a British soap opera set in Weatherfield, a fictional town in Greater Manchester based on Salford. Created by Tony Warren, Coronation Street was first broadcast on 9 December 1960...
was mentioned a few times by Eric; Graham Haberfield, aka Winston once played Jerry Booth in the show. Julie Goodyear
Julie Goodyear
Julie Goodyear, MBE is an English television actress and media personality, best known for playing the long-running role of pub landlady Bet Lynch on British soap opera Coronation Street.-Biography:...
appeared in two episodes as a housewife; she later played Bet Lynch
Bet Lynch
Elizabeth Theresa "Bet" Lynch is a fictional character from the UK television ITV soap opera, Coronation Street. The character is no longer part of current storylines. Portrayed by actress Julie Goodyear the character first appears onscreen during the episode airing on 23 May 1966. The character...
. Barbara Knox
Barbara Knox
Barbara Knox, MBE , is an English actress, best known for playing Rita Sullivan in the television soap opera Coronation Street.-Early life:Knox was born in Oldham, Lancashire...
(at that time Mullaney) who later played Rita Littlewood/Fairclough/Sullivan played a housewife who read tea leaves. Jill Summers
Jill Summers
Honour Margaret Rosell Santoi Fuller, better known as Jill Summers , was a British music hall performer and comedienne born in Eccles, Lancashire...
(Phyllis Pearce) played a cleaner in one episode. Peter Dudley
Peter Dudley
Peter Dudley was an English character actor best known for his role as Bert Tilsley in television's Coronation Street; a role he played continuously from 1979 until 1983.His period in the programme was however dogged by controversy...
(Bert Tilsley) appeared as a man in a hospital corridor in one episode and Bryan Mosley
Bryan Mosley
Bryan Mosley OBE was a British actor, known best as grocer Alf Roberts in the long-running ITV soap opera Coronation Street.- Early life :...
(Alf Roberts
Alf Roberts
Alfred Sidney "Alf" Roberts was a fictional character in the British ITV soap Coronation Street. He ran a grocery shop at No. 15 and was heavily involved in local politics, including two spells as mayor of Weatherfield...
) once appeared as a doctor. Furthermore, the opening and closing titles contain a recurring motif of a flower in a discarded beercan; "Newton and Ridley
Newton and Ridley
Newton and Ridley is a fictional brewery portrayed in the British soap opera Coronation Street, famously serving its ales in the Rovers Return. The idea came from Groves & Whitnall's in Salford, one of the largest brewing companies in Lancashire in the 1950s....
" (the Rovers Return brewers) is printed on this beercan.
Jack Rosenthal left the show to concentrate on developing another Granada sitcom, The Lovers
The Lovers (TV series)
The Lovers is a British television sitcom by Jack Rosenthal, starring Richard Beckinsale and Paula Wilcox as a courting couple, Geoffrey and Beryl. It was made between 1970 and 1971 by Granada Television for the ITV network. The hook for the show was the mismatch between the two, particularly in...
which co-starred Paula Wilcox
Paula Wilcox
Paula Wilcox is an English actress. She is best known for her role as Chrissy in the British comedy Man About the House .-Early sitcom fame:...
. She appeared in two episodes of The Dustbinmen as Naomi, Winston's girlfriend.
There are links with Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine
Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom written by Roy Clarke that was broadcast on BBC One. Last of the Summer Wine premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973 and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. From 1983 to 2010, Alan J. W. Bell produced and...
too. Brian Wilde, who played the final Bloody Delilah, played Walter Foggy Dewhurst in the programme. John Comer
John Comer
John Comer was a British actor best known for his comedy roles in the television series I Didn't Know You Cared, Last of the Summer Wine and All Our Saturdays.-Early life:...
who played Sid in the programme, once played a policeman in The Dustbinmen and Trevor Bannister has a recurring role as the golf club captain Toby Mulberry Smith.
In 1988 Brian Wilde starred with Trevor Bannister in the BBC1 show Wyatt's Watchdogs
Wyatt's Watchdogs
Wyatt's Watchdogs was a 30 minute BBC1 situation comedy that starred Brian Wilde and Trevor Bannister. Created and written by Miles Tredinnick, the six episode series was transmitted in the autumn of 1988...
, a short-lived sitcom about bickering neighbours trying to run a Neighbourhood Watch scheme.
Preservation and DVD release
- The original play was shot on black and white film, apparently 16mm.
- Except for the animated titles, series 1 was shot entirely on black and white videotapeVideotapeA videotape is a recording of images and sounds on to magnetic tape as opposed to film stock or random access digital media. Videotapes are also used for storing scientific or medical data, such as the data produced by an electrocardiogram...
. - All subsequent episodes, including a short Christmas sketch, were made on colour videotape with exterior scenes shot on 16mm.
- Only the first episode of series 2 has survived in its colour version; the rest of the 6 episodes of series 2 are preserved on black and white 16mm telerecordings with optical sound. These were obviously made for overseas sales, since the opening Granada Television logo is replaced by Granada Television International.
- Except for two episodes believed wipedWipingWiping or junking is a colloquial term for action taken by radio and television production and broadcasting companies, in which old audiotapes, videotapes, and telerecordings , are erased, reused, or destroyed after several uses...
, Series 3 and the Christmas sketch survive on colour videotape stock of widely-varying quality.
In 2005 the sole surviving material was released on Region 2 DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
by Network DVD.
Trivia
The show was noted for its use of "pseudo-profanity" in the speech. Like the later show PorridgePorridge (TV series)
Porridge is a British situation comedy broadcast on BBC1 from 1974 to 1977, running for three series, two Christmas specials and a feature film. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, it stars Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale as two inmates at the fictional HMP Slade in Cumberland...
, its characters would be expected to swear frequently, but at the time most swear words were forbidden in scripts, especially sitcoms. The characters frequently used the word "piggin'" as an all purpose substitute for swearing, just as characters in Porridge used the word "naff". There was almost more controversy over this than over actual swearing, with accusations of cowardice on the one hand, and complaints about the "made up" swear words on the other.
In the closing credits of the television series, the Granada "G-arrow" logo appears in black on a light coloured background (later blue on yellow) before rapidly expanding, switching to its usual "negative" colours and returning to normal size. This would appear to be the only instance of the Granada logo being toyed with in this way, since Granada reportedly disapproved of anything that might appear to trivialise its corporate image.